Daniel Drill-Mellum, a 21-year-old student, was arrested on Christmas Eve after flying back to the United States for his sister’s wedding. Daniel has been charged and accused of raping two University of Minnesota female students last year. The full list of charges is as follows:
• Two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct
• Two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct
• One count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
He was arrested by University of Minnesota police and is being held on $10,000 bail. He has also been forced to surrender his passport.
Update 11/7/2016: Dr. Phil just did an interview with one of Daniel’s victims, Abby Honold. You can watch a preview of that interview here.
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According to police, Daniel is accused of raping two women on back-to-back weekends, beginning with Halloween 2014 when he met an 18-year-old at a fraternity party. Here’s the story from Fox9:
An 18-year-old U student told police she met Drill-Mellum at a party at Sigma Phi at 400 10th Street SE on Oct. 31, 2014. He led her into the laundry room where they began to kiss. She tried to stop him while he pushed her against a wall then he tried to force her to perform oral sex. When she turned away and tried to get off her knees, he pushed her to the floor and said “I know you want this” and “You’re so turned on right now” and raped her. She told her roommate what happened the following morning and was treated at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. She did not report the rape to police a the time.
Exactly one week later, Daniel was at another party (this time at off-campus housing). This time he invited a 19-year-old female back to his apartment so that they could get more alcohol. Instead, he was interested in something else entirely. After the female refused to take off her clothes and asked to be taken back to the party, Daniel was having none of it.
She said she eventually performed oral sex on Drill-Mellum, “hoping that it would only take a few minutes and then the Defendant would allow her to return to the party,” according to the criminal complaint.
But the victim said he instead forced her onto a bed and raped her as she cried. [source]
So why did it take so long for Daniel to be taken into custody? Partly because the first rape victim didn’t report that she actually was raped until a year later (when she learned of a third sexual assault victim), and partly because Daniel was in Australia where he was interning at a hotel and studying at the Queensland University of Technology.
https://www.instagram.com/p/-r6MIWCk_Y/
Daniel was returning to the United States for his sisters’ wedding. Today was his first day in court.
