An ex-fraternity brother will spend just over six years behind bars and the rest of his life as a registered sex-offender, The Cut reports.
Daniel Drill-Mellum, now 22 years old, was a member of the University of Minnesota’s Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter. According to The Cut, he was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to two sexual assaults that took place in 2014. The rapes occurred within one week of each other.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the first of Drill-Mellum’s attacks was on Halloween of that year. He raped the first victim in the laundry room of his frat house. Then, about a week later, Drill-Mellum aggressively raped and choked a second woman in the apartment he was living in at the time.
The University of Minnesota kicked Drill-Mellum off its campus after the events unfolded, but a full investigation didn’t come until over a year had passed between when he attacked both women and when he, as the Star Tribune reports, showed up at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house. Drill-Mellum’s first victim went to the hospital for her injuries, but chose not to report the assault. She changed her mind after a friend caught sight of Drill-Mellum at the frat house, even though he had been expelled. Then she shared her story with the university’s police, and Drill-Mellum was finally handcuffed on Christmas Eve 2015.
Guilt was the name of the game in the courthouse this past Tuesday. The New York Daily News reports that Drill-Mellum pleaded guilty to the crimes and apologized to his victims, and his family offered to pray for them. Speaking to the Daily News about the proceedings, Abby, one of the victims, said she’d hoped the sentencing would make her feel as though justice had been served. However, she says that the apology and prayer offerings seemed half-hearted, and that the sentence seems to short.
Abby definitely has a point. No amount of jail time could wipe away the physical and emotional scars left behind by a rapist. Although Drill-Mellum said sorry and set himself up for a six-year stint in prison (which, as attorney Debbie Lang tells Daily News, is the amount of time recommended for his offenses), his victims will always be imprisoned by their memories of what he did to them.