Convicted Stanford Swimmer Brock Turner’s Dad Refers To His Assault As ’20 Minutes Of Action’

Dan Turner, the father of convicted Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, believes that six months in prison is too great a sentence for what he refers to as “20 minutes of action.”

Brock Turner’s Dad

Brock Turner was found guilty Thursday for sexually assaulting a woman at a Stanford University fraternity party last year while she was both intoxicated and unconscious. Following his conviction, the former Stanford Varsity swimmer was sentenced to six months in jail. Though state officials found the ruling too lenient, Dan Turner thinks that the prison sentence went too far.

“Brock’s life has been deeply altered forever by the events of Jan17th and 18th,” Dan began the letter. “He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile. His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, Fear, and depression. You can see this in his face, the way he walks, his weakened voice, his lack of appetite.”

Dan Turner then went into detail about Brock’s eating habits, writing, “Brock always enjoyed certain types of food and is a very good cook himself. I was always excited to buy him a big ribeye steak to grill or to get his favorite snack for him. I had to make sure to hide some of my favorite pretzels or chips because I knew they wouldn’t be around long after Brock walked in from a long swim practice. Now he barely consume any food and eats only to exist.”

Dan further suggested that his son has been victimized by the courts, who sentenced him to just six months in jail for his sexual assault on a 23-year-old woman on the Stanford University campus. He even went so far as to refer to the assault as “action.”

“These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His lie will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life,” he wrote. “The fact that he now has to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life forever alters where he can live, visit, work, and how he will be able to interact with people and organizations. What I know as his father is that incarceration is not the appropriate punishment for Brock.”

Why?

“He has no prior criminal history and as never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th 2015. Brock can do so many positive things as a contributor to society and is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity,” according to the father. “By having people like Brock educate others on college campuses is how society can begin to break the cycle of binge drinking and its unfortunate results. Probation is the best answer for Brock in this situation and allows him to give back to society in a net positive way.”

Dan Turner’s letter can be viewed in full here.