If You Were Assaulted at a University of Arkansas Fraternity House, the Evidence Is Already Dying
You are reading this at the worst moment of your life. Maybe it happened weeks ago, maybe days. You may still be in Fayetteville, trying to function in classes while your body and mind are running a completely different operating system. You may have been to the hospital. You may have given a statement to the police. You may have told one person, or no one. Whatever you have done so far, you have done enough to survive this far — and that is not nothing.
Here is what we need you to understand before anything else: the proof of what happened to you is on a clock, and the clock started the night of the assault. The surveillance cameras at the fraternity house — if they were working, if they covered the area where you were — are likely overwriting themselves on a rolling loop that can be as short as seven days. The electronic messages between members, the GroupMe chats, the texts that might show who knew what and when — those can be deleted by an administrator in seconds. The physical evidence on your own body, the bruising from being strangled and hit, is fading with every hour. The SANE exam, if you had one, produced a record that has to be preserved and subpoenaed before it is archived or lost.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We are a trial firm that takes Arkansas cases, working with local counsel where required, and we are telling you this not to scare you but to arm you. The single most important thing you can do right now, before you decide anything else, is make sure the evidence of what happened to you is locked down before the systems that hold it erase it on their own schedule. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. That is not a promise of a result — past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but it is the first, most urgent step in protecting your right to hold someone accountable.
You can call us right now, day or night, at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We don’t get paid unless we win your case. And we will talk to you in Spanish if that is the language you think in — Hablamos Español.
What Happened at the Kappa Sigma House — and Why This Is Not Only a Criminal Case
According to public records from Washington County, Arkansas, a 19-year-old University of Arkansas student was arrested and charged with rape, aggravated assault, and battery after a woman reported that she was sexually assaulted at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house in Fayetteville. The records indicate the assault occurred in March, that the victim reported being strangled and hit during the attack, and that the accused was arrested in April and posted bond. The criminal investigation is ongoing.
We are not here to try the criminal case in a web page, and we are not here to tell you the criminal system will fix this. The criminal system prosecutes the accused on behalf of the state. If there is a conviction, the state may send someone to prison. What the criminal system does not do is pay for your medical care, your counseling, the semester you may not be able to finish, the years of trauma that follow a violent sexual assault, or the future you now have to rebuild around an injury no one can see on an X-ray.
That is what the civil system is for.
A civil lawsuit is a completely separate case from the criminal prosecution. It is filed by you, not the prosecutor. It seeks money damages from the people and organizations whose choices allowed this to happen — not just the individual who assaulted you, but the fraternity that failed to supervise its house, the national organization that failed to enforce its own safety rules, and potentially the university that had a federal duty to protect you. The civil case does not wait for the criminal case to finish, and it does not require a conviction. It operates on a different burden of proof — more likely than not, not beyond a reasonable doubt — and it can hold defendants accountable even when the criminal system moves slowly or not at all.
If there is a conviction or a guilty plea in the criminal case, that becomes powerful evidence in the civil case. But you do not have to wait for one to start building your civil case. In fact, waiting is the one thing you cannot afford to do, because the evidence is dying.
Who Can Be Held Accountable: The Full Defendant Map
A sexual assault at a fraternity house is rarely the fault of one person acting alone in a vacuum. The fraternity house is a physical space owned or controlled by an organization. That organization has duties — to maintain the property safely, to supervise the people inside it, to enforce its own risk-management rules. When those duties are ignored and someone is violently assaulted, the law lets you hold every entity in the chain accountable.
The Individual Defendant
The person who committed the assault faces criminal charges. In a civil case, that individual can be sued directly for intentional torts — battery, sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress. An intentional tort is different from a negligence case: the defendant doesn’t just owe you damages for being careless; they owe you damages for choosing to harm you. Punitive damages — money meant to punish rather than compensate — are highly likely in an intentional-tort case involving violence like strangulation and rape.
But an individual college student may have limited assets. The real recovery often lives with the organizations around him.
The Local Kappa Sigma Chapter
The local chapter of Kappa Sigma at the University of Arkansas is the entity that operates the fraternity house — the physical space where the assault occurred. Under Arkansas premises-liability law, a property owner or occupier has a duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition and to protect visitors from foreseeable criminal acts. A fraternity house that hosts social events, where alcohol is served, where members and guests come and go at all hours, has a well-known, foreseeable risk of sexual violence.
The local chapter can be held accountable for negligent security — failing to implement or enforce basic safety measures at the house. It can be held accountable for negligent supervision — failing to monitor members and guests. And it can be held accountable for premises liability — failing to maintain the property in a condition that did not expose visitors to foreseeable danger.
The National Fraternity
Kappa Sigma, like all major national fraternities, has a national organization that charters local chapters, collects dues, imposes risk-management policies, and claims to oversee chapter conduct. The national fraternity publishes its own safety rulebook — risk-management protocols that govern alcohol, parties, guest policies, and member behavior. When a local chapter ignores those rules and someone is hurt, the question is whether the national organization did enough to enforce them, or whether it looked the other way while collecting the dues.
National fraternities carry significant insurance — often commercial general liability policies with substantial limits, sometimes layered with excess coverage. They also have deep institutional pockets and a strong incentive to settle cases quietly rather than face a public trial in a university town where a jury of local residents may have little tolerance for organizational negligence that enabled a violent crime. Our firm is currently litigating a fraternity case — the active $10 million Bermudez v. Pi Kappa Phi / University of Houston hazing lawsuit — and we understand how these organizations operate, how they defend themselves, and where their vulnerabilities are.
The University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is subject to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. Title IX requires the university to investigate and address sexual harassment and violence that interferes with a student’s education. A sexual assault at a fraternity house affiliated with the university may trigger the university’s Title IX obligations — particularly if the university had prior notice of risks at that fraternity, had received prior complaints, or failed to follow its own safety mandates.
The university is also subject to the Clery Act, which requires it to maintain a public log of campus crimes and publish annual safety reports. And the Arkansas Campus Safety Act imposes additional requirements on the university’s response to reported sexual assaults.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 mandates that the university investigate and address sexual harassment and violence that interferes with a student’s education. The Clery Act requires the University of Arkansas to maintain a public log of campus crimes and provide annual safety reports. Additionally, the Arkansas Campus Safety Act provides further requirements for university responses to reported sexual assaults.
Whether the university can be held financially accountable in a civil lawsuit depends on the specific facts — prior notice, the adequacy of its response, and the legal immunities that may apply. But the university’s Title IX record, its prior complaints against this fraternity or this individual, and its own internal communications are all discoverable evidence that can strengthen the case against every defendant.
Arkansas Law Gives Crime Victims a Civil Cause of Action
Arkansas has a specific legal tool for victims of violent crime that many people do not know about. Arkansas’s crime-victims statute provides a civil cause of action for victims of certain crimes, allowing for the recovery of damages resulting from criminal acts. This means that the legislature has already decided that victims of crimes like rape and aggravated assault have a recognized legal path to seek money damages from the people who harmed them — separate from the criminal prosecution.
Here are the legal principles that shape your case in Arkansas:
The statute of limitations. Arkansas generally imposes a three-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. For sexual assault, tolling considerations may apply — meaning the clock may not start running when you think it does, particularly if the survivor was a minor or did not immediately connect the harm to its cause. But the general rule is three years, and that deadline is unforgiving. The evidence clock and the legal clock run on different timelines — the proof may be gone in weeks while the deadline runs for years — and acting early protects both.
Modified comparative fault. Arkansas follows a modified comparative-fault rule with a 50% bar. This means you can recover damages as long as your own share of fault is less than 50%. In a sexual assault case, the defense may try to argue that the victim was somehow at fault — what she was wearing, whether she had been drinking, whether she went to the house willingly. These arguments are the oldest, cruelest playbook in the defense bar’s manual. They are also legally weak in a case involving rape and strangulation, because the eggshell-plaintiff doctrine — which we explain below — means the defendant takes the victim as they find them, and because the nature of sexual assault is that the victim’s presence at a location is never consent to violence.
Charitable immunity. Arkansas recognizes the doctrine of charitable immunity, which can sometimes shield non-profit organizations from liability. Fraternities may argue they are non-profit entities entitled to this protection. But many modern courts have limited charitable immunity’s application to the insurance limits of the organization — meaning if the fraternity carries insurance, the immunity extends only to the policy limits, not beyond them. In Greek-life litigation, this defense is frequently raised and frequently narrowed. It does not end the case; it shapes the recovery architecture.
Punitive damages. Arkansas allows punitive damages in cases involving willful and wanton misconduct. The individual defendant’s alleged conduct — rape and strangulation — is the textbook definition of intentional, violent conduct that warrants punitive damages. Against the fraternity, punitive damages may be available if the organization’s disregard for safety was not just negligent but conscious and deliberate — if it knew of prior problems and chose to do nothing.
The Medicine of Sexual Assault: What the Trauma Did to Your Body and Mind
We need to talk about what happened to you medically, because the defense in a civil case will try to minimize it. They will call it “emotional distress.” They will say you “seem fine.” They will point to a clean MRI or a normal CT scan and say there is no injury. Here is what the medicine actually says.
Strangulation Is a Lethal-Force Injury
If you were strangled during the assault, you survived an act that is medically recognized as one of the most dangerous forms of violence a person can experience. Non-fatal strangulation is a predictor of future lethal violence — a person who has been strangled by a partner or assailant is at dramatically elevated risk of later being killed by that same person. Strangulation can cause injuries that are not always visible on the surface: petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes from burst capillaries, damage to the carotid arteries that can cause a stroke days or weeks later, injury to the larynx that changes the voice, and hypoxic brain injury from oxygen deprivation that may not show up on a standard scan but produces real cognitive symptoms.
The physical evidence of strangulation can fade within days. Bruising that was visible the morning after may be gone in a week. Voice changes may resolve. Swallowing difficulty may improve. This is why the SANE exam — the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner examination performed at the hospital — is so critically important. If you had one, the nurse documented the strangulation evidence while it was still visible. If you did not have one, the window for documenting the physical evidence is closing fast.
Rape Is the Most PTSD-Generating Event in Trauma Medicine
Post-traumatic stress disorder is not a mood. It is not a label. It is a formal medical diagnosis with eight specific criteria in the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual psychiatrists use. To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have been exposed to a traumatic event, must experience intrusive symptoms like nightmares and flashbacks, must avoid reminders of the trauma, must show negative changes in mood and thinking, and must have altered arousal — hypervigilance, exaggerated startle, sleep disturbance, concentration problems — lasting more than a month and causing real functional impairment.
In the largest epidemiological study of its kind, rape was found to be the single most PTSD-generating event researchers measured — more likely to cause lasting post-traumatic stress than combat, than car wrecks, than natural disasters. Nearly half of women who are raped go on to develop PTSD. This is not a “soft” injury. It is one of the most predictable, most documented psychological injuries in trauma medicine.
“She Didn’t Fight Back” Is a Symptom, Not a Defense
One of the cruelest myths about sexual assault is that a “real” victim fights back. If you froze — if you could not move, could not scream, could not resist — the defense may try to use that against you. The science says the opposite. In clinical studies, approximately 70% of rape survivors experienced significant tonic immobility during the assault — an involuntary, brain-mediated freeze response where the body locks down and the person physically cannot move or speak. It is a survival reflex, like a flinch. It is not consent. It is not a choice. And the survivors who experienced this involuntary paralysis go on to suffer PTSD at far higher rates — meaning the ones who froze were the ones the trauma hit hardest.
The Injury That Does Not Show on a Scan
The defense will point to a normal brain scan and say there is no proof of injury. But a “mild” traumatic brain injury — the kind that can occur when someone is strangled or when the head is struck against a surface — can come with a perfectly normal CT. The damage in these injuries is often diffuse axonal injury — microscopic tearing of the brain’s wiring that standard imaging was never designed to see. Advanced imaging like diffusion tensor imaging can detect what a CT misses. And the symptoms — the headaches, the memory gaps, the concentration problems, the personality changes — may be things your family and friends notice across the dinner table before any scan confirms them.
What This Costs Over a Lifetime
Federal public-health researchers at the CDC have estimated the lifetime economic cost of a single rape at more than $122,000 per survivor — and that figure counts only the things you can put on an invoice: medical care, therapy, lost productivity. It does not begin to measure the nightmares, the relationships that strained, the front door you cannot walk through alone, the semester you had to drop, the career trajectory that changed. For survivors who develop PTSD — which, as we noted, is nearly half of rape victims — the cost of ongoing trauma-focused therapy, psychiatric medication, and lost earning capacity can run far higher. And for those who were strangled, the medical monitoring for carotid artery injury and the risk of future violence add another layer.
The San Diego hotel sexual assault lawsuit our firm has written about demonstrates how negligent-security claims against organizations that fail to protect people from foreseeable sexual violence are litigated — and how the damages in these cases extend far beyond the immediate medical bills.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Are Dying Right Now
This is the most urgent section on this page. Every record below exists right now. Every one of them is on a clock. The clock does not care that you are in pain, that you are trying to finish a semester, that you are not ready to talk to a lawyer. The clock runs.
Fraternity House Surveillance Video
What it captures: The comings and goings at the house, the entry and exit times, the physical state of people arriving and leaving, and potentially the interior of common areas.
Who holds it: The fraternity house itself, or the property management company that runs the building. The national fraternity may also have access through its risk-management oversight.
How fast it dies: Fraternity house video systems, like hotel and retail systems, typically overwrite on a rolling loop — often every 7 to 30 days. Some systems overwrite even faster. Once the loop cycles, the footage is gone. Not archived. Not stored. Gone.
What to do: A preservation letter — a formal legal demand that the fraternity and its property manager hold all footage — must go out immediately. If the fraternity allows the footage to be destroyed after receiving the letter, a judge can instruct the jury to assume the missing video would have helped your case.
Electronic Communications — GroupMe, GroupMe, Text Messages
What they capture: Messages between fraternity members about the incident, about the survivor, about prior complaints, about the culture of the house. These messages can show who knew what, when they knew it, and whether there was a pattern of predatory behavior that was tolerated or covered up.
Who holds them: Individual members hold their own messages. GroupMe administrators or chapter officers may have access to chapter-wide communications. The national fraternity may have access to chapter communications through its oversight systems.
How fast they die: Messages can be deleted in seconds. A chapter officer who is thinking about the fraternity’s reputation can clear a GroupMe chat before anyone asks for it. Once deleted, these records may be unrecoverable.
What to do: The preservation letter must specifically name electronic communications, GroupMe chats, text threads, and any chapter communication platforms. The letter must go to the local chapter, the national organization, and any third-party platform that hosts the communications.
The SANE Exam and Medical Records
What they capture: The forensic evidence of the assault — documentation of injuries including strangulation marks, bruising, and any biological evidence. The SANE nurse’s observations and the forensic kit itself are the single most powerful physical evidence in the case.
Who holds them: The hospital where the exam was performed, the Arkansas state crime lab if the kit was submitted, and potentially the police department investigating the case.
How fast they die: The physical evidence in a rape kit can degrade over time if not properly stored. Hospital medical records are subject to retention schedules that vary by state and facility — they can be archived, purged, or made difficult to obtain after a few years. But the SANE exam report itself, if properly preserved, is durable evidence. The problem is getting it subpoenaed before it is buried in a records archive.
What to do: Medical records must be subpoenaed through proper legal channels. The preservation demand should name the hospital, the crime lab, and the investigating police department. If you had a SANE exam, that exam is the cornerstone of the physical evidence — and it must be secured.
University Title IX Records
What they capture: Any prior complaints against the accused individual, any prior complaints against the Kappa Sigma chapter, the university’s investigation file, and its findings. These records can show a pattern — whether this was an isolated incident or part of a known, tolerated culture at that fraternity.
Who holds them: The University of Arkansas’s Title IX office, the dean of students, and potentially the campus police.
How fast they die: University records are subject to FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and may be difficult to obtain without a litigation hold or subpoena. But they exist, and they are discoverable in a civil lawsuit.
What to do: The preservation letter should go to the university’s general counsel and Title IX office, demanding that all records related to the accused, the fraternity chapter, and any prior complaints be preserved.
Witness Statements and Outcry Evidence
What it captures: The first person you told — the “outcry witness” — carries evidence that corroborates your account. Their memory of that conversation degrades with time. Friends who saw you before and after the assault carry observations about your physical and emotional state. Their memories are fading right now.
What to do: Identify the outcry witness and document their account while it is fresh. Do not contact fraternity members yourself — let your lawyer handle all communication with potential witnesses.
The Fraternity’s Own Rulebook: Safety Standards They Were Bound to Follow
Every national fraternity publishes a risk-management policy. These policies are not suggestions — they are the organization’s own safety standards, and they exist because the national organization knows exactly what can happen when they are ignored. In discovery, the fraternity’s own risk-management manual is one of the most powerful documents we can obtain, because it establishes the standard of care the fraternity set for itself — and then failed to meet.
Kappa Sigma, like all major national fraternities, has policies governing alcohol at chapter events, guest policies, house security, member conduct, and the supervision of social functions. When a violent sexual assault occurs at a fraternity house, the question is not just whether the individual committed a crime — it is whether the fraternity followed its own rules, and if it did not, whether that failure created the conditions for the assault.
The premises-liability and negligent-security work our firm does is built on the same principle: an organization that controls a physical space has a legal duty to make that space safe, and when it fails, the people who are hurt have a right to hold it accountable. A fraternity house is no different from a hotel, an apartment complex, or a parking garage in this respect — the duty follows the control.
In discovery, we prioritize the fraternity’s risk-management manual, its incident-report history, its prior complaints, and its internal communications about safety at the house. If the fraternity had received prior warnings — if there had been prior incidents at this chapter, prior complaints about this individual, prior issues with house security — those records establish foreseeability and notice. And if the national organization knew about problems at this chapter and did not intervene, that is the foundation for arguing the national fraternity itself was negligent.
Title IX and the University of Arkansas’s Federal Duty
The University of Arkansas receives federal funding, and with that funding comes a legal obligation under Title IX to respond to sexual violence that affects its students. Title IX is not a campus policy — it is a federal civil-rights law. It requires the university to investigate reports of sexual assault, to take steps to protect the survivor, and to address a hostile environment that interferes with a student’s education.
When a sexual assault occurs at a fraternity affiliated with the university, the university’s Title IX obligations may be triggered. The questions that matter are: Did the university have prior notice of risks at this fraternity? Had it received prior complaints about this individual? Had it investigated this chapter before? Did it follow its own Title IX procedures? Did it take meaningful steps to protect the survivor, or did it go through the motions?
The university’s Title IX records — its investigation files, its findings, its correspondence with the fraternity, its prior complaint history — are discoverable in a civil lawsuit. They are subject to FERPA protections, but a litigation hold and proper subpoena can reach them. These records can be the difference between a case against a single individual and a case that exposes a pattern of institutional failure.
What Your Case Is Worth: Damages in Sexual Assault Civil Claims
We will not tell you a specific dollar figure because your case is worth exactly what the facts prove, and we have not yet seen all the facts. But we will tell you how the value is built, because understanding the architecture of damages helps you understand why acting now matters.
Economic damages are the losses you can put on an invoice: past and future medical expenses (the ER visit, the SANE exam, the therapy sessions, the psychiatric care, the medications), counseling costs (trauma-focused therapy can run for years), and lost earning capacity (if your education was interrupted, if you had to withdraw from classes, if the trauma affected your ability to work). These are provable with records and expert testimony.
Non-economic damages are the human losses: physical pain, the psychological trauma of rape and strangulation, PTSD, the loss of your sense of safety, the loss of enjoyment of life, the relationships that changed, the experiences you can no longer have without fear. These are the largest category in most sexual-assault cases, and they are the category the defense fights hardest to minimize. A forensic psychologist who specializes in trauma testifies to the long-term impact of campus sexual violence — the nightmares that persist for years, the hypervigilance that changes how a person moves through the world, the trust that was shattered.
Punitive damages are the punishment. In a case involving intentional, violent conduct — rape and strangulation — punitive damages against the individual defendant are highly likely. Against the fraternity, punitive damages may be available if the organization’s disregard for safety was willful and wanton — if it knew of the danger and did nothing, or if it maintained a culture that tolerated predation.
Case-value ranges in fraternity sexual assault litigation, based on the extreme violence of the battery (strangulation) and the organizational defendant, typically run from the high hundreds of thousands to several million dollars. Cases involving national fraternities often settle for significant sums because the organizations have a strong incentive to avoid a public trial and a jury verdict in a university town where the community has low tolerance for violent crimes by students. But every case is different, and past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Try Before You Have Even Called
The fraternity’s insurance company — and the national organization’s claims team — may already be involved. They have a playbook, and it runs on a timeline designed to close your case before you understand what it is worth. Here are the plays they will run, and here is how each one is countered.
Play 1: The “Friendly Check-In” Call
Within days of the incident, someone may call you — or a family member — sounding warm and concerned. They will say they just want to “check on you” and “hear what happened.” The call is recorded. Everything you say is being built into a defense file. The tone is kind; the purpose is to get you to say something — anything — that can be quoted later to minimize the assault, suggest you were at fault, or undermine your credibility.
The counter: Do not talk to the fraternity’s insurance company. Do not talk to the fraternity’s lawyer. Do not talk to the national organization’s investigator. Every communication goes through your lawyer. If someone calls, take their number and give it to us. The preservation letter we send specifically instructs them that all communication must go through counsel.
Play 2: The Fast Settlement Check
A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the full extent of your injuries is known, sometimes before you have even started therapy. It will come with a release — a document that, if you sign it, gives up your right to sue forever. The check is designed to look like help. It is designed to close the case before the real costs — the years of therapy, the lost semester, the PTSD that may not fully declare itself for months — become clear.
The counter: Never sign a release without a lawyer reading it first. A release is a permanent surrender of your rights. The adjuster’s first offer is a fraction of what the case is worth — Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years on the insurance-defense side of the table and knows from the inside how adjusters set reserves and value claims in the first 48 hours, before the real injuries are diagnosed. That knowledge now works for you.
Play 3: The “She Was Drinking” / Comparative-Fault Argument
The defense may try to build a comparative-fault argument — suggesting that you were drinking, that you went to the house willingly, that you somehow contributed to what happened. In Arkansas, the modified comparative-fault rule means your recovery is reduced if you are found partly at fault, and barred if you are 50% or more at fault.
The counter: The eggshell-plaintiff doctrine means the defendants take you as they found you. Drinking is not consent to assault. Being at a fraternity house is not consent to rape. The defense’s attempt to shift blame is exactly why voir dire — the jury-selection process — must carefully screen out jurors who carry victim-blaming biases. And the tonic-immobility research we discussed above — the science showing that most rape survivors freeze involuntarily — directly counters the “she didn’t fight back” argument.
Play 4: The “Not Our Member, Not Our House” Defense
The national fraternity may argue that the local chapter is an independent entity, that the house is owned by a separate house corporation, that the national organization does not control day-to-day operations. This is the same shell-game defense that hotel brands use to avoid liability for what happens at franchised properties.
The counter: The national fraternity collects dues, imposes risk-management policies, charters the chapter, and claims to oversee its conduct. The degree of actual control the national exercises — its rules, its inspections, its communications, its response to prior incidents — is the evidence that pierces the shell. Discovery targets the franchise agreement, the risk-management manual, and the national’s own records of oversight.
Play 5: The Assault-and-Battery Exclusion
Many commercial general liability insurance policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions that attempt to deny coverage for claims arising from sexual assault. The insurer’s first move may be to deny coverage, leaving the victim to believe there is no money to recover.
The counter: Coverage exclusions are heavily litigated, and the specific language of the policy matters. There may be coverage under negligent-supervision or negligent-security theories that are distinct from the intentional tort of the individual. An experienced attorney reads the policy — not the insurer’s summary — and identifies the path to coverage. Lupe’s years inside the insurance-defense world included working with the very types of coverage software and claim-valuation systems that insurers use to deny and devalue claims like yours.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do, What Not to Do
If the assault happened recently — within the last few days — here is the practical roadmap.
Do this:
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Seek medical care immediately. If you have not already been to the hospital, go now. Ask for a SANE exam. The forensic nurse will document injuries including strangulation evidence while it is still visible. If you were strangled, tell the nurse specifically — strangulation has its own injury pattern that needs to be documented. The hospital will also test for sexually transmitted infections and provide emergency contraception if applicable.
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Preserve physical evidence. Do not shower, bathe, or change clothes if you have not already done so. If you have already showered, that is okay — do not let anyone make you feel guilty for a natural response. Save the clothes you wore during the assault in a paper bag (not plastic, which can degrade biological evidence). Do not wash them.
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Document everything you remember. Write down or record everything you can recall about the assault — who, what, where, when, what was said, what you felt. Memory degrades with time, and trauma can scramble the order of events. Your own contemporaneous notes, made now, are more powerful than a reconstruction made weeks later.
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Identify the outcry witness. Who was the first person you told? Their memory of that conversation is evidence, and it degrades with time. Note who they are and when you told them.
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Save all electronic evidence. Screenshots of text messages, photos, social media posts — anything related to the assault, the accused, or the fraternity. Do not delete anything. Do not contact the accused or any fraternity member.
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Call a lawyer. The preservation letter — the single most important early step — goes out the day you call. It freezes the evidence before it can be destroyed. Contact us for a free, confidential consultation.
Do not do this:
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Do not post on social media. Anything you post can be taken out of context and used against you. The defense will mine your social media for anything that can be twisted to minimize your suffering or suggest you are fine.
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Do not talk to the fraternity’s insurance company, lawyer, or investigator. Everything you say will be recorded and used to build a defense file against you.
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Do not communicate with fraternity members. Do not text, call, or message anyone in the fraternity. If they contact you, do not respond. Document the contact and give it to your lawyer.
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Do not sign anything. No release, no settlement, no statement, no authorization — nothing — without your lawyer reading it first.
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Do not assume it is too late. If the assault happened weeks or months ago, evidence may still be recoverable. Surveillance systems may have longer retention cycles than expected. Medical records exist. Witness memories, while degraded, are not gone. The statute of limitations gives you time. But the evidence clock gives you urgency.
How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of a civil sexual-assault case against a fraternity, from the day you call to the day the case resolves.
Week one: preservation. The preservation letter goes out immediately — to the local chapter, the national fraternity, the property manager, the university, and any third-party platform that holds evidence. The letter orders them to freeze all surveillance video, electronic communications, incident reports, and internal records. This is the spoliation letter, and it is the single most time-critical step in the entire case.
Weeks one through four: evidence gathering. We pull the police report, the SANE exam records, your medical records, and the university’s Title IX file. We identify the outcry witness and other witnesses. We begin building the timeline.
Weeks four through twelve: investigation. We work with local counsel in Arkansas to file the civil case. We begin discovery — demanding the fraternity’s risk-management manual, its incident history, its prior complaints, its insurance policies, and its internal communications. We depose the fraternity’s officers, the house manager, and the national organization’s risk-management personnel under oath.
Months three through twelve: the dual track. While the criminal case proceeds separately, we monitor it. If there is a conviction or guilty plea, that becomes powerful evidence in the civil case. Meanwhile, the civil discovery continues — we build the record of organizational negligence, prior incidents, and foreseeability.
The resolution. Most fraternity cases resolve before trial — the organizations have a strong incentive to settle quietly rather than face a public trial in a university town. But we prepare every case as if it will go to trial, because the strength of the preparation is what drives the settlement. If the case does go to trial, the jury is drawn from Washington County — a community that, while conservative, has shown little tolerance for violent student crimes and organizational negligence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if the criminal case is still pending?
Yes. The civil case is a completely separate legal proceeding from the criminal case. You do not have to wait for the criminal case to finish before filing a civil lawsuit. The civil case operates on a different timeline, a different burden of proof, and seeks different remedies — money damages rather than imprisonment. If the criminal case results in a conviction, that becomes powerful evidence in your civil case, but it is not a requirement.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit in Arkansas?
Arkansas generally imposes a three-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. However, sexual assault cases may involve tolling considerations that extend or delay the deadline — particularly if the survivor was a minor or did not immediately connect the harm to its cause. The safest approach is to consult a lawyer immediately, because the evidence clock runs much faster than the legal clock. The proof may be gone in weeks while the deadline runs for years.
Can I sue the fraternity even if the individual member was the one who assaulted me?
Yes. A fraternity can be held accountable for the foreseeable criminal acts of its members and guests when it failed to maintain safe premises, failed to supervise its members, or failed to enforce its own risk-management policies. The fraternity’s own negligence — in security, in supervision, in following its own rules — is a separate basis for liability from the individual’s intentional conduct.
What if the fraternity says they are a non-profit and have charitable immunity?
Arkansas recognizes the doctrine of charitable immunity, but many modern courts have limited its application to the insurance limits of the organization. This means that if the fraternity carries liability insurance — which national fraternities typically do — the immunity may extend only to the policy limits, not beyond them. Charitable immunity is a defense that must be raised and tested, not an automatic shield that ends the case.
Will I have to testify in court?
If the case goes to trial, you may need to testify. But most civil sexual assault cases resolve before trial — through settlement or alternative dispute resolution. Your lawyer will prepare you for every step of the process, and you will never be alone in it. If testifying becomes necessary, the court can take steps to protect your privacy and dignity.
What if I was drinking when the assault happened?
Drinking is not consent to sexual assault. The defense may try to use your alcohol consumption to argue comparative fault, but the eggshell-plaintiff doctrine means the defendants take you as they found you. Being intoxicated does not make you responsible for someone else’s decision to assault you. The science of tonic immobility also explains why someone who has been drinking may freeze rather than fight — the body’s survival reflex does not require sobriety.
I did not have a SANE exam. Is my case still viable?
A SANE exam is powerful forensic evidence, but it is not the only evidence. Your own testimony, the testimony of witnesses, the police investigation, electronic communications, surveillance video, and the circumstantial evidence of the assault all contribute to the case. If you did not have a SANE exam, it is still important to seek medical care — both for your health and to document any injuries. Do not let the absence of a forensic exam convince you that you have no case.
How much does a lawyer cost?
Our firm works on contingency. That means you pay nothing upfront. We advance the costs of the case — the filing fees, the expert witnesses, the discovery expenses. We are paid only if we recover money for you, and our fee is a percentage of the recovery. If we do not win, you owe us nothing. The consultation is free, confidential, and you are under no obligation to hire us after talking with us. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 at any hour.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find a story the defense does not want told — and how to tell it to a jury in a language they cannot ignore. He is the managing partner of Attorney911 and the lead counsel in an active $10 million hazing and fraternity lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston — a case that, like yours, involves an institution that failed to protect the people entrusted to it.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. Before he sat on this side of the table, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims like yours. He knows how the other side sets reserves, how they pick IME doctors, how they use surveillance and social-media mining, and how they engineer delay. He uses that knowledge for our clients now. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We are a trial firm that takes Arkansas cases, working with local counsel where required. We are based in Houston, but the work we do — fighting for people harmed by institutional negligence, corporate recklessness, and intentional violence — does not change because the case is in Fayetteville. The medicine is the same. The corporate-accountability fight is the same. The catastrophic-injury and sexual-assault work is the same.
Our firm has recovered more than $50 million for injured clients — including a $5 million brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million truck-crash recovery. Those are the firm’s documented results, not promises. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can promise is this: when you call, you will talk to a real person, not an answering service, 24 hours a day. The consultation is free. The conversation is confidential. And the preservation letter goes out the day you hire us — because the evidence of what happened to you is dying, and the only thing standing between it and destruction is someone who knows exactly what to demand and how fast to demand it.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Or contact us online. We are ready. And we will talk to you in Spanish if that is your language — Hablamos Español.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different. The information here applies to Arkansas law as we understand it, but only a lawyer who has reviewed the specific facts of your situation can give you advice you can rely on. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.