Charged With Rape, He Pleaded No Contest To An Assault Charge. Now He's Suing His Victim.

“I feel like the nightmare doesn’t end."
A man who pleaded no contest to assault is now suing his victim.
A man who pleaded no contest to assault is now suing his victim.
Robert Daly via Getty Images

After four years, two criminal trials, and finally a plea agreement, a former University of California, Davis student thought her rape case was settled last month when her attacker received his jail sentence.

Then just a few minutes after the sentencing hearing on July 19, Yee Xiong was served with papers for a civil lawsuit accusing her and family members of defaming Lang Her, the UC Davis classmate she accused of rape.

“Just when I thought it was over, it was not,” Xiong told The Huffington Post.

Xiong reported to police in July 2012 that she woke up after a night of drinking at a social gathering to find Her sexually assaulting her.

Following two mistrials, Her pleaded no contest on May 13, 2016, to assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. Her was sentenced last month to one year in jail, five years probation and a requirement to register as a sex offender, in addition to paying restitution to Xiong. He must surrender to serve his jail term on Aug. 30, according to the Davis Enterprise.

But after pleading no contest to the assault charge, Her filed a $4 million civil lawsuit on May 20 against Xiong and several members of her family, accusing them of defamation.

“I feel like the nightmare doesn’t end,” Xiong said Tuesday.

The suit says Xiong and her family members defamed Her by calling him a “rapist” on Facebook, and claims they “colluded” to brand him as such, especially among the Hmong community. (Both Xiong and Her are Hmong.) One family member, the lawsuit complains, used Halloween photos of Her “without permission or consent” to present him in a “false light.”

The suit is scheduled for a case management conference on Sept. 19.

Phone calls on Monday and Tuesday to Her’s attorney, David Collins, went unanswered and were not returned. Collins did not respond to a LinkedIn message. A link on his LinkedIn profile referred to the website of a different lawyer named David Collins in North Carolina. He also did not respond to a Facebook message. Her’s personal contact information was not publicly listed, and he is not publicly viewable on social media platforms.

The civil suit, if it’s not dismissed, could mean Xiong would have to go back to court on the defense, explaining how it was not defamation for her family to call Her a “rapist” after reporting him for rape.

Her told investigators at first that he didn’t have any sexual contact with Xiong, only to later change his story to say he did and it was consensual. His story changed after forensic testing revealed his DNA in vaginal swabs from Xiong, according to local reports.

Her’s family offered to have him marry Xiong, she said in court, and when that failed, offered to give her any amount of money she wanted in hopes of avoiding punishment for him. Xiong believes that the civil suit is an attempt to intimidate her family.

“I think it’s outrageous for someone to try to silence his rape victim through the legal process,” Xiong said, noting that because a restraining order is in effect, Her can’t contact Xiong or her family members, either directly or through a third party.

“But he’s using this to continue to harass my family and me,” she said.

Prosecutors charged Her with rape of an unconscious person, rape of an intoxicated person and sexual battery.

Her pleaded no contest rather than facing a third trial in the case, after two concluded in mistrials. The first case ended with a jury hung 8-4 in favor of acquittal, while the second had the jury deadlocked at 10-2, leaning toward a guilty conviction.

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Tyler Kingkade is a national reporter covering sexual violence, and is based in New York. You can reach him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or find him on Twitter: @tylerkingkade.

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