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.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
