90 Day Fiance star Ashley Martson has revealed she was kidnapped, raped and almost killed by a stranger when she was just 19 years old.
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Ashley disclosed the horrific incident in an Instagram posting on Thursday, but suggested she didn't have much of a choice as the story had been leaked to tabloids by "an old friend."
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"As most of you know an old friend decided to send the tabloids a very personal story about me. Yes, when I was 19 I was kidnapped, raped and almost killed by a stranger. Many outlets were reaching out to me for comment," Ashley wrote on Instagram.
Ashley's statement served as the caption to a screenshot of an October 2009 news story published by The York Dispatch newspaper. Headlined "Jurors find man guilty in York City rape case," the news article reported on the conviction of Ashley's attacker.
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Ashley said in the caption that she wanted to leak the story first because she "wasn't sure how the other tabloids would portray me" and she understandably wanted the "sensitive subject" to be treated with "dignity and respect" in the press.
"People are disgusting," Ashley concluded in her Thursday Instagram post. "Sending this story to tabloids shows how sh-tty people really are... #90dayfiance #tlc #metoo."
According to The York Dispatch story -- which did not identify Ashley by name, presumably because she was a rape victim -- a jury took less than 90 minutes after a fast trial to convict a former Philadelphia man of kidnapping and raping a young woman in York City in 2005.
Sean Patrick Gallagher, who was 39 years old at the time, was also convicted of robbery, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and making terroristic threats for the October 7, 2005 incident.
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Gallagher was reportedly charged in the case based on a conclusive DNA match between his DNA and semen left in the victim's car. The DNA technology had also exonerated two innocent men who were previously arrested for the crimes before Gallagher.
According to the Dispatch report, Gallagher's victim was reportedly approached by Gallagher around 5:30PM when she was walking to her job at a local business called the Hardware Bar.
Police said Gallagher put the blade of a box cutter to the young woman's throat and attempted to rob her, but when she said she had no money he forced her into the passenger seat of her own car, where he bound her hands with plastic zip ties, the newspaper reported.
After Gallagher reportedly drove around for some time, he eventually chose to rape the woman at an athletic Field.
When Gallagher allegedly threatened to kill the terrified woman so he wouldn't go to jail, she hit him with her bag to knock him off balance and then escaped by sliding down an embankment and then swimming across a creek.
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She had reportedly chewed through the plastic ties to free her hands so she could run to safety.
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At the time a jury found Gallagher guilty of rape and kidnapping in 2009, he was already serving an eight to 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a 2007 robbery case in Philadelphia, according to The York Dispatch.
According to a subsequent report published by The York Dispatch in December 2009, Gallagher was eventually sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison for his York City crimes, with the judge ordering that the sentence only begin after he completed serving his sentence for the Philadelphia robbery.
Gallagher was also reportedly confronted by his victim at his December 2009 sentencing hearing.
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"How dare you make me come here and tell everyone what you did to me," she reportedly told the rapist. "You are a sick person... I hope bad things come to you in jail, and I hope you rot in hell."
"He terrorized me and violated me and tried to take my life," she also told the judge, adding that the horrible crime had caused her setbacks in life.
The report also clarified that Gallagher was only identified after his DNA was submitted to a national DNA database because of his robbery convictions. Once submitted, it was found to match the DNA York City Police had already previously submitted from the unknown rapist.
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Ashley currently stars on Season 6 of 90 Day Fiance on TLC with her fiance Jay Smith from Jamaica.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski