The white woman who was sued by a Black police officer and his friend for falsely accusing them of raping her last November in Manvel, Texas, has now filed her own civil lawsuit against the two men, claiming she has evidence to prove they violently raped and injured her while holding her against her will. She seeks damages of at least $1 million.
According to her complaint filed in a Brazoria County civil court on Aug. 26, Amanda Zawieruszynski, 40, says that an evening of socializing with her neighbor and former casual sex partner John Marks, 41, and his friend Freddie Douglas, 43, a police officer, turned unexpectedly violent when she refused to have three-way sex with the men in a pool.
She accuses the men of forcing her to drink liquor, ripping off her bathing suit, and taking turns raping her throughout the night, both in the pool and elsewhere inside the home of Marks, where she had earlier showed up with cupcakes to celebrate his new home and to enjoy a late-night swim. She said she tried to escape many times, but the men refused to let her put her clothes on and blocked her from leaving until the next morning.
Marks and Douglas were arrested in December on charges of aggravated rape and kidnapping, but the charges were dismissed in May by a grand jury that viewed footage from Marks’ home security system, which captured much of the men’s interactions with Zawieruszynski in the pool and inside his home.
Both men sued Zawieruszynski and the city of Manvel for false arrest and other civil rights violations, claiming that the sex among the three was mutually consensual and that the video surveillance tapes proved it. They said their reputations and livelihoods had been ruined by the false accusations and wrongful arrest, which lacked probable cause.
Douglas, a decorated detective with the nearby El Campo Police, was fired over the allegations. Marks, a businessman, said he lost wages, professional opportunities, and standing in the community and was socially ostracized.
Zawieruszynski told the Daily Mail in a statement that the grand jury that declined to indict the men was not privy to important pieces of evidence corroborating her story, including a rape kit completed on the day of the alleged assault, medical exams that discovered tearing and internal bleeding, and images of severe bruising on her body.
Zawieruszynski has permanent physical scarring and experienced vaginal bleeding for months after the incident, the complaint alleges. “She has required surgical intervention from the repeated sexual assault and rape. She has further required extensive physical and mental treatment as a result of the defendants’ actions,” it says.
She also claims that one of the men’s statements was improperly withheld from the grand jury by an assistant district attorney.
Zawieruszynski called the prosecutor’s failure to present such evidence to the grand jury “a strategic mishandling of the case that prioritized power and optics over the facts” in a statement to the Daily Mail.
“Despite recent claims and circulation of a misleading and harmful narrative, it is clear that Ms. Zawieruszynski was raped and did not consent to any sexual activity with the perpetrators,” her attorney Thomas “Trey” Cammack said in a statement provided to reporters this week.
Her lawsuit charges both men with sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, assault & battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and willful detention, and conspiracy to “lure her into their trap, get her drunk, and prevent her from being able to leave” as they assaulted her. She seeks damages for physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, medical expenses, disfigurement, impairment, lost wages, legal fees, and exemplary damages.
Zawieruszynski, a single mother who had separated from her husband early last year prior to moving to Manvel, said she had broken off a casual sexual relationship with Marks, her neighbor, shortly before the alleged rape but had maintained a friendly relationship with him.
She said she was compelled to come forward publicly after Marks and Douglas were acquitted of criminal charges related to the sexual assault and then filed lawsuits that included “a misleading and harmful racial narrative” that shifted the blame to her and represented that she was a racist white woman crying rape by two Black men to avoid responsibility for her own behavior.
“The question of my experience is not just insulting, it is retraumatizing,” she said, adding, “I’ve chosen to reclaim my narrative, to speak truth and to demand justice, not just for myself, but for all survivors — because allowing a false narrative to exist that diminishes a rape under the guise of racism is offensive and an injustice.”
“We are aware of her alleged ‘rape kit,’” said Michael Kerensky, the attorney representing Douglas. “The findings of that exam are equally consistent with having consensual sex with two men, one of them all night long,” he said, adding that her counsel remain convinced that the video evidence will exonerate Douglas, the New York Post reported.
Douglas categorically denied each of the allegations against himself and Marks in his answer to Zawieruszynki’s legal complaint.
“Unfortunately, Amanda’s story about what happened that night continues to change,” Kerensky stated in an email to Atlanta Black Star. “Her new narrative and all the others are absolutely contrary to the objective video evidence that proves that her claim of sexual assault and kidnapping was fabricated.”
“We find it ironic that she now is attempting to portray herself as a champion of women who were truly sexually abused or assaulted and were not believed. Amanda has done more damage with her demonstrably false claims to the plight of women who report actual sexual crimes than she will ever be able to repair with her new faux campaign. We look forward to putting her under oath and confronting her with the truth of what happened that night.”
Correction: A previous version of this article contained an editing error and a misstatement about the plaintiff’s legal complaint. The phrase “casual sex partner” was incorrectly edited to “casual sex with partner,” implying that the complaint said that Amanda Zawieruszynski and John Marks were consenting sexual partners the night of the alleged incident, which it did not.This error has been corrected.
