Lawsuit: Incoming UNR freshman drugged, raped at orientation

A teenage girl was drugged and raped at a new student orientation for the University of Nevada, Reno, according to a lawsuit filed last Thursday in federal court against the Nevada System of Higher Education and her alleged assailant.

The lawsuit was filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe. It makes eight claims of relief, including sexual assault, battery, violation of Title IX and negligence.

“It’s always a very difficult decision for a survivor to decide to bring an action like this,” Brian Perkins, an attorney representing the plaintiff, said. “My client thinks it’s a really important case, not just for her, but for the cause and for UNR and universities nationwide, to try to make sure that this cycle of harm and sexual assault that take place on campuses can hopefully be reduced.”

NSHE said it does not comment on pending litigation. Caden Fletcher, identified in the lawsuit as the teen’s assailant, did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday or Monday. The defendants have not yet had the opportunity to respond in court.

Unsupervised party

The alleged assault occurred during an overnight orientation for incoming students to UNR. According to the lawsuit, UNR required students to participate in either a day or overnight orientation.

Doe attended an overnight orientation in July 2023, prior to what would have been her first year at UNR.

That night, Fletcher and another incoming first-year student obtained alcohol and threw a party in a dorm suite, the complaint said. Throughout, people drank alcohol and used marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, according to the complaint.

Some people also invited friends who lived in the area but had no affiliation to UNR, according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiff went to the party and was drinking water from her water bottle, the complaint said. She set it down at one point and left it unattended while she used the restroom. She returned and drank from her water bottle, and from there, her memory of the night goes blank, according to the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff’s water bottle had been spiked with a drug that caused her to lose consciousness,” the lawsuit said.

The teen woke up the following morning on the floor of the common area of the dorm suite. The complaint said she was “groggy,” but she noticed that her underwear was on backwards. She felt sick and threw up twice in the bathroom and then noticed that her eyes were bloodshot, pupils were dilated, her legs were covered in bruises and she felt severe pain in her pelvic area, the complaint said.

The lawsuit said that the student leaders were in the other room on their phones, and only came in once in the early hours of the morning to tell the high school graduates to go to sleep.

“The sexual assault of Plaintiff was facilitated by UNR’s deliberate indifference to the safety of students attending its freshman orientation. UNR failed to ensure adequate supervision, enforcement of drug and alcohol policies, and safeguards against known risks of sexual violence in dormitory settings,” the complaint said.

Police investigation

In a university police investigation described in the complaint, witnesses said Doe was in an intoxicated condition the night before.

“Because UNR permitted a party to occur within the dormitory where alcohol and drugs were openly consumed, other students wrongly assumed Plaintiff voluntarily became intoxicated and bystanders failed to recognize that Plaintiff had been drugged by Fletcher,” the complaint said.

Fletcher told police that he had had “sexual intercourse, orally and vaginally” with Doe around 2 a.m. on July 21, the complaint said.

The lawsuit said that the school police recommended charges, but that “inexplicably,” the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office did not bring charges against Fletcher.

A representative from the district attorney’s office said Tuesday that UNR police submitted an arrest warrant request for a sexual assault charge.

“However, after a comprehensive review of the evidence, along with the investigating detective’s concession that the charge could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, no formal criminal charges could be filed,” Kendall Holcomb, a spokesperson for the office, wrote in an email.

A UNR representative said the university did not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit also alleged that Fletcher and his friends and family “engaged in multiple acts of witness intimidation against Plaintiff and her friends.”

The trauma led the plaintiff to pull out of school for a semester and eventually attend a different school, according to the complaint. Fletcher remains a student at UNR, according to the lawsuit and his social media profiles.

Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X and @katiefutterman.bsky.social.