On the same day that Judge Aaron Persky handed Brock Turner a mere six month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, he gave another man “weekend jail” for brutally beating his former fiancee.
Just half an hour before the Stanford rape victim read her powerful impact statement to a California courtroom, another woman stood in the same room and shared a graphic account of her own abuse.
The unnamed woman — a Chinese immigrant in her early 30s — held up photos of her bloodied face and clothes, and her bruised body, while detailing a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend, 37-year-old Ming Hsuan Chiang, according to the Guardian.
All the while Chiang sat just a few metres from her.
Despite pleading guilty to the domestic violence charges against him, including causing “serious bodily injury”, Judge Persky sentenced him to just 12 weeks of so-called “weekend jail” — so he could continue his job as an engineer in Silicon Valley.
Comparisons have been drawn with Judge Persky's lenient treatment of Brock Turner.
"Is this acceptable?" the woman said, describing her treatment as akin to "torture".
"Visible injuries can be treated, but invisible injuries sometimes can last forever."
According to police reports obtained by the Guardian, on October 6, 2014, officers were called to a house in Sunnyvale — which is nearby the Stanford campus in Palo Alto — after neighbours heard a woman screaming for help.
The victim was found with a swollen lower lip and blood across her face and told police Chiang had hit her five times, before she fell down outside the house.