Villanova Student Demands Man Who Recorded Her Sexual Assault Not Walk at Graduation
The young woman, who was attacked in a dorm room, is graduating the same day as Juan Eguiguren, who recorded the assault on his phone.
A sign at Villanova University, where Juan Eguiguren recorded a sexual assault on his phone. Villanova student Elijah Katznell committed the sexual assault. (Photo by Victor Fiorillo)
UPDATE 4/9 1:15pm: The victim of this sexual assault at Villanova University just spoke out for the first time. Go here to read her full statement.
ORIGINAL:
A Villanova University student who was sexually assaulted in a Villanova dorm room in 2022 is demanding that a student who was present for the assault and videotaped the incident not walk at graduation this May, according to the victim’s attorney.
At the beginning of the academic year in 2022, Villanova student Elijah Katzenell sexually assaulted the student in Katzenell’s dorm room. He did so while she appeared to be unconscious. It was the start of the woman’s sophomore year.
Katzenell’s roommate, Andrew Polun, assisted in the sexual assault, as he admitted to police. He assisted because Katzenell was a virgin and wasn’t quite sure what to do, according to court documents. At one point, Polun moved her head around while while Katzenell sexually assaulted her.
The Delaware County District Attorney’s office charged Katzenell with sexual assault. Prosecutors didn’t charge Polun or Eguiguren with any crimes.
Last September, Katzenell pleaded guilty to sexual assault. He did so in exchange for a sentence that included zero jail time. Katzenell received seven years probation and lifetime registration as a tier 3 offender — the worst kind — on the Megan’s Law sex offender registry.
Elijah Katzenell’s photo on the Pennsylvania Megan’s Law sex offender registry
At some point, Katzenell and Polun stopped attending Villanova University. It’s unclear exactly when. It’s also unclear whether this decision was theirs or Villanova’s. The university refuses to say. Katzenell moved out of the area. Polun transferred to Towson University in Maryland. He is pursuing a career in investment banking, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he notably doesn’t use his last name. [Ed. Note: Polun’s LinkedIn page disappeared shortly after Philly Mag published this story.]
As for Eguiguren, he’s still a student at Villanova. Last year, an anonymous individual started a Change.org petition, seen below, imploring Villanova to expel him. But that didn’t work. He’s graduating in May on the same day that the victim is graduating. And now, she’s standing up and demanding that Villanova bar him from walking at graduation.
A screenshot of the Change.org petition demanding Villanova expel Juan Eguiguren
On March 27th, her lawyer, Jay Edelstein, sent a letter to Villanova’s lawyer, James Keller at Saul Ewing. (Edelstein is representing her in an ongoing federal civil lawsuit against Villanova, Katzenell, Polun, and Eguiguren.)
“Predictably,” he wrote, “our client has suffered from persistent psychological and emotional trauma knowing that the individual who videorecorded her being raped while she was unconscious is still happily enrolled at Villanova, freely roaming the campus as if nothing happened.” Edelstein went on to say that Eguiguren should not walk at graduation. (While Edelstein uses the term “raped,” Pennsylvania law makes a distinction between sexual assault and rape, and it is sexual assault that Katzenell pleaded guilty to.)
A response to that letter came quickly, but not from Keller. Eguiguren’s attorney, Douglas Maute, responded to Edelstein the next day. Maute referred to an “information resolution agreement” reached between the victim and Eguiguren. This term refers to an agreement frequently made in cases like this through a university’s Title IX office. Maute wrote that “no term therein bars Mr. Eguiguren from any Commencement-related event” and that the agreement and university policy “renders [the victim] ineligible from seeking further resolution.”
“The [agreement] should be given no weight here,” Edelstein wrote back to Maute. “My client… signed the agreement with much trepidation and under extraordinary duress. When she signed it, she was not thinking about graduating Villanova. She was thinking about being raped at Villanova. And she did not have counsel present to advise her. She was with administrators from an institution that had just failed her.”
Edelstein went on to say that the agreement does not govern Villanova’s decisions with regard to graduation. He added that the agreement does not compel Villanova to “continue to make poor decisions regarding its discipline of the bad actors involved in the rape… including Eguiguren.”
If Villanova does allow Eguiguren to participate in graduation, Edelstein writes that this “would defy basic logic and would be yet another public offense to moral decency concerning victims/survivors of sexual assault… If Villanova bends once more to the wants of an individual who videotaped a rape and moved the body of an unconscious and unsuspecting rape victim, the institution will once again be protecting the wrong student. Respectfully, I cannot fathom that this is where Villanova wishes to draw a line in the sand, and plant its school flag, in favor of an admitted videographer of a rape in Villanova’s dormitory.”
So how will this end? Will Villanova University allow Eguiguren to walk at graduation? The school has yet to respond to Philly Mag’s request for comment. Eguiguren’s attorney declined to comment on this story.
“I really don’t think the administration is going to do anything about this,” says a senior at Villanova who is familiar with the case. (She asked to remain anonymous out of privacy concerns; she is not the victim.) “The only way Villanova will care is if there’s a huge response. From current students. From alumni. Maybe alumni could threaten to withhold donations? I don’t know. But I do have a feeling that this repulsive little man is going to walk across the stage with the rest of us. They’ll read his name. They’ll hand him his diploma. And then he gets to just forget about all this. She’ll never forget.”
