Jewish UCLA Fraternity Sued Over Sexual Assault
(JTA) — A female student at the University of California, Los Angeles has sued the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity there and one of the fraternity’s former members, accusing him of sexual assault.
The accuser, who is remaining anonymous in the lawsuit, says that Blake Lobato, a ZBT brother, forcibly penetrated her while she was drunk after a party in August 2016, according to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper. Lobato had allegedly pressured her to drink to excess, then convinced her to go to sleep at the fraternity. The student says in the suit that she physically resisted Lobato and screamed at him to stop.
The student says she reported the incident to the then-president of ZBT, but the fraternity did not investigate the issue. Subsequently, Irving Chase, a lawyer who sits on the ZBT board, allegedly attempted to dissuade the student from reporting the incident to the school. ZBT is a historically Jewish fraternity.
The suit, filed Aug. 10 in Los Angeles Superior Court, names ZBT, UCLA’s Interfraternity Council, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon, where the party in question took place, for negligence. The student is also suing Lobato for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
