A Deshaun Watson Accuser’s Open Letter: Cleveland Browns Deal a ‘Crushing Blow to Survivors Everywhere’
My name is Lauren Baxley. On March 11, I sat in a secure room with five other women who claimed that my abuser, Deshaun Watson, had also assaulted them. Some of these women had civil cases against him; some did not. For the women who did not have civil representation, any hope for a shred of justice or validation hung in the hours that ticked by. While our experiences may have varied somewhat in detail and severity, we shared the hope that he would be stopped—that somehow, he would not be enabled or emboldened to hurt even more women in the ways he hurt us.
That day, after spending eight hours with the company of my own anxious and pounding heart, and the collective trauma detailed in our police reports, I expected indictments. The prosecutors led me to believe that they needed a grand jury’s approval to indict Watson on the charges of indecent assault, which is currently a misdemeanor offense. That was not the case, and they let us down.
More than that, the choice to not indict Watson on our testimonies—that were deemed “highly credible” by prosecutors and the detectives who worked our criminal cases—opened a floodgate of abuse, slander, and libel toward us on the internet. The worst of the women-haters came out, declaring the no-bills proof that we were “prostitutes” all along.