“I am literally majoring in forensic science so I can process rape kits to get justice for sexual assault victims,” writes Daymia Bonilla, the former Student Government senator under investigation for sexual harassment. “They knew that… and used it to their advantage.”
Courtesy of Mia Bonilla
By Mia Bonilla
On Oct. 26, 2019, my life changed for the worse. I entered a situation that I thought was just easygoing fun with some people who I thought were my friends. I was so wrong.
The idea was presented to take something I shouldn’t have been taking, and I didn’t really want to take them because I was nervous about the effects they might have on me, and I had never taken them before. I was pressured into doing it and taking 3.5 grams of hallucinogenic mushrooms, which is way too much for a first-timer. I kept insisting that I only wanted to do one gram, but they incessantly told me that I should take 3.5. I did it reluctantly, and I was really scared the entire time. Both the accuser and her friend took them, and after that night, I never wanted to take them again.
Once we entered the dorm room, I felt better, and it just became me laughing with my friends and having fun. All tensions eased.
I have been sexually harassed and assaulted more times than I would like to admit, so consent is very important to me.
When I took my shirt off, I asked politely, and they all were telling me it was okay and to do whatever made me comfortable — especially because we were all very close friends at the time. When I asked to have an orgy, it was mostly a joke that we all laughed at. When they said that they didn’t want to do it, I did not ask again. When I lay in bed with the accuser, I asked if it was okay. We were really close girl friends and had done stuff like that before. If she seemed uncomfortable in any way, I would not have done anything.
Toward the end of the night, they started randomly being really mean to me, I think because the drugs shifted their perception of me. They walked me to Residence Hall One and the entire time I heard passive-aggressive remarks from the accuser’s best friend. They left me alone in my dorm while I was having a bad trip. In that tiny room, I had multiple panic attacks because I was scared that they were mad at me for some reason and I couldn’t fathom why. The shrooms made it exponentially worse, and I felt really suicidal because I already had depression and anxiety.
By some miracle, I ended up falling asleep and making it to work at 7 a.m. The accuser showed up at my job and walked home with me so we could talk about what happened. She was acting really rude and assuming personal things about me and my childhood. She said that she thought I was “molested or raped as a child” and laughed about it as if it was some sort of joke and stated that her friend thought the same. Then, she proceeded to tell the rest of her friends this. She also said she thought I had daddy issues and that I needed deep psychological help.
After the next day, they all ignored me for weeks and would glare and snicker at me when I passed by. My depression came back stronger than ever. I felt extremely suicidal, I started self-harming again after years of being clean, I was losing sleep, and I was constantly anxious that people were out to get me.
Then I got a text from the accuser that if I didn’t resign from the Student Government senate, she would file a Title IX report on me.
This was clearly blackmail, and I think she was doing this to either plainly hurt me, or possibly divert attention away from herself because she had multiple articles written about her own controversies in The Crow’s Nest before this.
Either way, I felt really betrayed, especially because I opened up to them about my childhood and sexual assault stories and how much of an advocate I was for consent. I am literally majoring in forensic science so I can process rape kits to get justice for sexual assault victims. This hit me hard, and it was the worst thing they could have possibly accused me of. They knew that… and used it to their advantage.
I didn’t resign from Student Government, because I worked hard on my campaign to get elected, and I didn’t want to throw it all away because of a fake accusation.
The funny thing about the Title IX report is that it happened right before my first senate meeting, and 15 minutes after the report was filed, I got an email from The Crow’s Nest telling me they heard about the report and wanted to interview me. So who could have possibly tipped them off about this situation so an article about me could be written?
Of course, I was a public figure, and articles could be published about me whether I wanted them to be or not, so I figured I would try to tell my side of the story as best as I could.
Long story short, I was peer-pressured, blackmailed, falsely reported, embarrassed, bullied, betrayed and defamed. I’m considering taking legal action because of how deep this false accusation has buried me. Part of me wishes that I could redo my entire freshman year and find friends that didn’t treat me like absolute garbage, and the other part of me just wants to dig a hole in the dirt and lie in there for the rest of my life.
I eventually resigned from the senate because I was tired of being glared and laughed at in every meeting I attended by these people, along with personal issues I was going through apart from this.
Nonetheless, despite the accuser telling everybody about this story, trying to make me look bad, despite people gossiping about me and believing this ridiculous story for some odd reason, I’m trying to be strong, and I urge everyone to be careful who they spend their time around. You never know how evil people can truly be.
It almost
seems as if this accusation was made out of jealousy. I don’t know this girl but its very strange that they only bring up this accusation when they want her to leave the senate. It seems as if some racism and homophobia is prevalent in these accusations as well.
I’ve known Mia since high school, and while we weren’t the best of super close friends, she never once made any attempt to assault, vilify, berate, or destroy me, or anybody, or treat anyone as if they were an object. She is trustworthy, incredibly coherent, observant, and independent, and I know these rat-dropping accusers are nothing but sniveling fools wishing to tarnish the image of an honorable woman. Mia needs her side to be heard, because I have seen lies spread way too quickly from personal experience, to know what kind of effects they can have. She has my support, till the very end.
Beautifully written Mia. Congrats on being a strong woman who can stand up for herself. It is such a shame that women feel the need to tear down and defame other women. Maybe if women could start loving one another they way we hate one another, we could really make a difference in the world. I am so sorry this happened to you. You clearly admit you made a bad decision and everyone knows peer pressure is a real thing. I hope you are heard loud and clear, I hope things get better for you. Continue to be strong, we need more women like you who use their voice. Also, thank you for bringing awareness to sexual assaults and trying to make a difference. Too many cases go unreported. Way to make a difference. Keep shining girl, the world is your oyster.
When meeting Mia she was a bit timid, shy to herself and unproblematic. A young lady paving her way to a brighter future to help others.
I met Mia through her older sister on our way to St. Pete to drop her off back to the campus.
I became curious to see her dorm life through MY lens.I didn’t get to experience the dorm life as a young adult so I was eagerly excited to see how she decorated her dorm room. I feel ones space can define ones personality.
When walking in it was pink! It felt safe, girly, organized and overall unique. She expressed her field of study and I learned she was in college for forensic science. Super cool!
A young beautiful African American / Latina decent with ambition. I am so proud of her!
When I learned about the situation that happened to Mia I couldn’t help but remember my thoughts I originally shared with her older sister.
I told her older sister.
Mia needs to be careful with the company she keeps because I’d be surprised if people didn’t become envious of her beauty, charm, and intelligence. Which can be a triple threat for many!
Being a woman is hard as is. And having other women look at you as a threat can cause anyone to want to curl up and hide from the world.
Not only is she beautiful. But she’s smart and determined and that alone will drive people to do whatever it takes to wipe them off the board. Which is obvious was the intent!
Women fought for their rights. And here we are 2020 bashing the ones we call our friends. SHAME!
Young women are finding a way through their adult life. It doesn’t come over night and it doesn’t welcome us with welcome arms. In the midst we’ll fall upon circumstances that are nothing more than experiences. We live and we learn from them. But they DO NOT define us.
I strongly believe Mia is more than the image portrayed against her.
I believe Mia was on her way towards great success for herself and for student government.
Friends who invite you to places, keep you safe! They don’t pressure you to try something you’re not comfortable with. They don’t use your secrets against you for their benefit. And they most certainly don’t use it for their gain.
If at any point these young women felt a threat by Mias success, then they should’ve fought more constructively and worked harder. Better yet, they should’ve worked as a TEAM! Not single handly annihilate her character for their own selfish gain and demise her from the position of student government.
CONTINUE TO SHINE MIA!
Kind Regards,
Crystal
I love you Mia, stay strong & don’t let these evil people get to you.
The fact that my dear friend is going through this really baffles and hurts me. It makes me realize how cruel people in this world are — the fact that they would do anything to complete their own selfish agenda. I personally never associate with people I don’t trust. I’m reserved and only hang out with people i’m comfortable with. Mia is one of those friends I really trust and can see in my future
This article written bt the accuser is literally just self loathing and victim shaming. Why are you even removing your shirt in the first place? And shrooms definitely don’t make people just become rapists. If you didn’t do it then why even mention and blame the shrooms for your action for that night? And this has nothing to do with race at all but good try to make yourself look like the victim to appeal to readers. It didn’t work.
James,
I actually made the Title IX report and asked Mia to leave the Senate in November. The original article was published December 20th. The Title IX office is REALLY slow. Also, the beginning of this process was actually late October, when the incident happened. I am in Student Government and did not want to have to work with my assailant, which is why I asked her to leave.
Plus, there is no racism or homophobia going on. Myself and my best friend who is mentioned in the article are both LGBTQ+ POC, and at the time Mia told us she was straight.
Accusations like these are the reason why actual sexual assault victims find it hard to seek help. Shame on you. I know Mia, and I know she’d never hurt a fly. She’s trying her hardest to find a better life for herself, and you’re ruining it for some petty reason.
Whether the accuser/accused is telling the truth or lying, a high dose of mushrooms can definitely alter your perception of the truth and make you believe something happened when in reality, it did not. Obviously not blaming everything on the drug, but it can have a serious effect on your psyche and make you believe something that isnt true.
This article is riddled with lies so I thought that I should clear them up. First of all, no one pressured the accused to do any drugs that night. We asked her if she wanted to partake, and she agreed. This narrative of us pressuring her is simply to take the blame off of her actions, which she denies.
The accused claims that she cares about consent, which she may, but she did not abide by her own values that night if that is the case. She did not ask to take her shirt off, she did it while begging us to have an orgy. She asked so many times and she was trying to be coercive with me in particular. As the accused is aware of, it was not a laughing matter when she suggested an orgy. We told her no many times and had to provide her multiple reasons why it could not happen: sexuality, relationships, and the lack of wanting to. She took more actions with me that night, but I do not wish to relive details that the accused conveniently left out of her letter. Only my best friend who she mentions in this was ever being aggressive with her, if anyone was. Sexual assault prevention and education is one of his biggest passions, as anyone who knows him knows, and it obviously repulsed him to see her behavior that night. Her behavior that night was unacceptable. For this reason, I decided to end the friendship.
The accused is claiming that I laughed at the notion of her being abused as a child, which is untrue. This is taken out of context. She was telling me that the reason she behaved the way the way that she behaved in general was because of her childhood. I asked her about the extent of the abuse, and never laughed at the horrifying thought.
The accused mentions that my friends and I stopped interacting with her after this incident, but does not establish a motive. Well, for anyone who is confused, I will connect the dots. We stopped interacting with her because we did not want to associate with what we observed to be a sexual predator.
Next, the Crow’s Nest actually contacted me about this case, I did not reach out to them first regarding this.
I have no motive to make the accused “look bad.” As she asserts multiple times, we were good friends before this happened. If telling people about my experiences makes the accused look bad, I don’t know that you can blame that on me.
The accused should just take responsibility for their actions and work to improve.
Wait, I’m confused.. it says you were blackmailed into leaving the senate but you ended up staying in the senate and http://crowsneststpete.com/2020/03/09/sg-senator-resigns-amid-title-ix-investigation/ this article says you weren’t showing up to meetings and the pro tempore told you to start showing up and then you resigned… if the report was already filed and you left because you didn’t want to show up to meetings in what world is this blackmail?
Karl Marx, i was blackmailed into leaving Senate in December but then I decided to stay and not listen to that person as I stated in this article because I didn’t want to give senate up for a false accusation. The report was filed as a result of me not listening to the blackmail and not resigning. I wasn’t showing up to any meetings because I was under deep stress due to the false accusation along with a lot of family and personal issues. When the pro tempore notified me that I had to start showing up to meetings I figured I would just resign since I couldn’t commit to senate as I had hoped. But I did get blackmailed and this all happened as a result of me staying in senate when they wanted me to leave.
Okay so you weren’t blackmailed into leaving the Senate in December. You left on your own accord in March because you were stressed. It sounds like they tried to work it out with you by asking you to leave (since I assume they were also on the senate?) but you didn’t want to so they filed the report to handle things more officially. Just a hunch though, who can know…
Trying to work it out with me is not giving me both of those options to either leave senate or get a title ix report filed on me. Both options are bad. A definition of black mail is to “force (someone) to do something by using threats or manipulating their feelings.” They tried to force me to leave senate and the threat was them filing a report on something I would never do in my life. There is obviously malicious intent that came from her and this entire situation and if you can not see that then you’re probably friends with them.
Just saying idk this girl very well but I know the accuser and she is a super drama heavy person along with all of her friends. At first I thought this girl might be guilty but after finding out who it was that made these accusations and reading this article, please don’t believe these dumb accusations. Nothing has been proven whatsoever and this girl seems like she’s a pretty level headed person who was on her way to the top when these people came out with this crap. I don’t think I can give the accusers name? But just know she is a very conniving person and filing a fake sexual assault report out of jealousy and blackmail sounds just like something she would do…
Why can’t you give the accuser’s name? That restriction presumably only applies to the university and Bonilla, but anyone else can name the accuser, legally and procedurally speaking. One of the recurring features of Title IX proceedings is accusers openly trashing the accused, violating gag orders, with no pushback from the university. (The Department of Education’s new Title IX rules actually ban gag orders on either party, so at least now the accused can fight back.)
The fact this happened to Mia is so mindboggling because she is such a genuine and compassionate person; someone I know would never try to pressure another person into sexual activity or anything like that. She is EXTREMELY considerate of consent, which I’ve personally witnessed, always asking first if it’s okay to take actions that might make others uncomfortable. I don’t believe that at any moment she took her shirt off without asking, “begged” for an orgy, or touched anyone inappropriately. It’s glaringly obvious the Title IX claim is false, the accuser using her open mindedness and unashamed attitude toward sexuality against her. Pitiful.
Her name is Daymia Bonilla.
In Daymia’s statement She admits to the fact she engaged in sexual activity with someone she knew was under the influence of a drug and therefore unable to consent. Title IX is ignorant to the fact that she too was under the influence. She admits to being the aggressor. That is the hallmark of a Title IX violation. She has condemned herself with her statement. That it is why it is best to remain silent. You have that right.
Maybe this will make you realize the importance of due process for the accused and not to believe all accusations. The accused whom you’ve vilified before it happened to you, often men, faced the same psychological stress and ostracization and had to endure without your luxury pity party of one. Leave it to the courts.
John, I never admitted to engaging in physical sexual contact with anyone because it didn’t happen. All that happened was me taking my shirt off which they said that they were fine with, and me jokingly asking for an orgy that we all laughed at, and once they said no I spoke no further of it. Any physical contact that was made was platonic, non-sexual, and consented to. We were all on the same level as we all took the same amount of psychedelics. They also pressured me into taking the drugs in the first place.
I think it would be nice to hear the victims side of the story. Every single article about this has just painted the accused as the “real” victim, but what about the accuser? This letter itself was written by the accused and she could’ve easily made up things/twisted the story. As a victim of sexual abuse, I understand how hard it is to find your own voice and speak about something traumatic. But it’d be nice to see some justice come to the victim. As a former friend of her, the accused/potential predator has always been a bit “too open” with her sex life. Always making weird sexual comments, and posting weirdly sexual/fetish things on her social medias. I’ve heard from multiple people about her pressuring them to submit to her fetishes/sexual desires. It really wouldn’t surprise me if this turned out to be true.
Not sure who you are but you seem to have a problem with me. In which case, making up more lies about me on this article is immature and pointless. I am also a survivor and i stand by other victims religiously. Consent is extremely important to me. I would never make anyone feel the same way I have the many times I have been assaulted. My accuser is a liar that turned on me and made her friends believe these ridiculous things. She is making a mockery of what it is actually like to be a victim, and making it more difficult for true victims to speak out. Finally, shaming another woman for being “too open” with her sex life is many things; bigoted, slut-shaming, misogynistic, and ignorant being just a few of them.
I’m wondering why this article is not sitting atop the google search results for Daymia like the one which ultimately defames and attempts to destroy her character and future earnings.
While i’m all for this sexual assault story being published along with the narratives of the accused and the victim; I find myself wondering why any of these stories were open to comments. It seems like opening these stories up to comments is asking for trouble. Trouble in the sense of victim shaming, possible bullying on either side, and the reluctance to give the accused their “fair trial”. Just my two cents.
While its important to hear both sides, its odd to see a school newspaper put out an alleged sexual predators “letter to the editor”. All the articles on this subject paint Bonilla as the real victim and its very strange that the male student government members didn’t get the same treatment. Girls can be sexual predators too. The above comments that bring up Bonilla’s openness to sexuality having a correlation to her predatory behavior may have been made in poor taste, but as a former acquaintance I always got a strange feeling from her. She’s always tried to make sexual advancements or said weird sexual things to my male friends and I, she acts defeated and angry when they don’t comply with her, or if another women receives attention besides her. She uses her promiscuity for attention and plays the victim card when she doesnt get her way. She acts innocent but shes insecure and impatient. Its important to bring up her character in this situation because although she’s not a TERRIBLE person she is very insecure and tries to cover it with a very cocky attitude and her promiscuity. She doesn’t realize that not everyone is attracted to her or wants to have sexual relations to her. Its not really that crazy to believe that she could be a predator.
The male student government members have just as much right as I do to write a letter to the editor and tell their side of the story. I agree that girls can be sexual predators and it is very dismissed most of the time, but this is me trying to defend myself against a false allegation. Not everyone will believe me and that’s fine. However, you are assuming way too many things about me (for an ex ACQUAINTANCE nonetheless) and either dramatizing or fabricating things related to my character. I get sad like anyone else would if someone doesn’t like me back. I’m human. But I would never push anyones boundaries, get angry at another woman for getting attention, and I certainly don’t need to use my promiscuity for attention. I do realize not everyone might want me because I have common sense. I am many things; a feminist, a survivor, and an advocate being just a few of them. A predator is not and will never be one of them.