A former Fordham University naval student says his life was “destroyed” when his college roommate allegedly raped him in their dorm room — and he is accusing the Bronx school of turning a blind eye to warning signs, according to a new lawsuit.
Francis “Frank” Austin, 32, is suing his former college for negligence, claiming Fordham could have prevented two alleged attacks by his then-roommate Patrick Sweeney — the son of a highly influential attorney in the US military — in 2011.
“The aftermath of these assaults has destroyed my life without any help or acknowledgment from Fordham as to what happened to me,” Austin said during a press conference held over video.
“I fell into a deep depression and attempted to take my life on several occasions,” Austin said, adding that he had to start counseling to cope.
Austin — who was in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the time — had requested more than once to be transferred to a different dorm room, reporting alleged threats by Sweeney, according to the Manhattan federal lawsuit from Monday.
Austin has not brought any legal claims against Sweeney.
Then on Feb. 11, 2011, Sweeney “carried out his threats against Austin” raping him in his dorm room, the suit alleges.
Despite reporting the alleged rape to two different staffers at Fordham, the school did “absolutely nothing,” and Austin was sexually assaulted by Sweeney on campus against in 2012, he said.
“Fordham recklessly chose to ignore these warnings, even refusing to investigate the rape after Austin informed faculty members about it, which paved the way for the second sexual assault,” the suit charges.
Leading up to the alleged assaults, Austin claimed that Sweeney was “increasingly aggressive, erratic [and] violent.”
“I spent first semester of my sophomore year living in constant fear of my roommate,” Austin said.
He said he requested “several times” to change roommates and he reported Sweeney’s “escalating aggression and repeated threats of rape and murder” to the school, Austin claims.
“But Fordham did absolutely nothing,” he claims. “They turned a deaf ear to my warnings and left me to defend myself against a person who shared my room, that had a key to my own personal space.”
Austin said he hopes the suit will force the school to change so that no one else has to endure what he did.
“Fordham refused to act and I am the one who has to live with the consequences of their inaction every day,” he said.
Austin filed an initial lawsuit against Fordham in 2021 but the judge in that case dismissed the claims as time-barred.
In the prior suit, Austin claimed the school protected Sweeney and attempted to “destroy his life” — including by pushing him out of the naval program and derailing his dreams to work with submarines.
Austin was able to bring a new lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year look-back window for victims of sexual abuse to file claims even if they had since passed outside the statute of limitations.
“As alleged in the lawsuit, Fordham University already knew Patrick Sweeney was a danger to
other students, and they were told time and time again of his violent and threatening behavior
toward Frank Austin,” Austin’s lawyer Lesley Brovner said in a statement. “Fordham had every opportunity to prevent these attacks and inexcusably failed to do so.”
Sweeney didn’t immediately return requests for comment Monday.
A Fordham spokesperson said the university does comment on litigation in progress.
