Georgia Woman’s $1 Billion Settlement May Be the Largest U.S. Sexual Assault Verdict Ever

By Carson Kessler

Hope Cheston was only 14 when an armed security guard at an apartment complex in Jonesboro, Ga raped her in 2012.

She told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that she feared her case would simply be “swept under the rug.”

But on Tuesday, nearly six years after Cheston’s assault, jurors in Clayton County, Ga. awarded her $1 billion in compensatory damages in a civil lawsuit against Crime Prevention Agency, the security company that employed her rapist.

Three lawyers told The New York Times they believed the award was the largest verdict for damages in a rape case in U.S. history.

“A jury, from now on, will know there is no ceiling on the damages that rape causes to a woman,” her lawyer, L. Chris Stewart, said. “They literally thought a billion dollars was the value of a 14-year-old being raped in public.”

Cheston’s mother, Renatta Cheston-Thorton, filed the civil lawsuit in 2015 on behalf of her daughter. She accused the security company of negligence in their training and performance, as well as failure to keep a 14-year-old safe.

The guard, identified as Brandon Lamar Zachary, began serving a 20-year sentence for statutory rape in 2016, according to online prison records.

Verdicts in the millions, or even hundreds of millions, are not uncommon, Jeff Dion, director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association, said in an email to The Associated Press. But he believes this historic verdict was clearly meant to “send a message.”

While it’s likely the security company will appeal the verdict and a judge will likely lower the awarded amount, the settlement is a symbolic win for sexual assault victims everywhere, even if it is just temporary.

“My verdict basically shows if you stick with it and do what you need to do to get your justice, there’ll be a brighter end,” Cheston, now 20, told The New York Times.