JoAnn Buttaro Cooper

Beginning in 2009 I have been giving speeches and interviews about rape and sexual assault speaking to groups ranging from victim’s advocate trainings and Take Back the Night events on college and university campuses across the country. Additional speaking engagements include University of Pennsylvania’s Victimology course for 6 consecutive semesters and a Workshop presenter at the 41st NOVA Conference.

My media experience includes national and international documentary programming, radio interviews for the BBC, multiple podcasts and served as an expert for news articles, websites, product development and the long running investigative true-crime series on Oxygen Cold Justice.

I am a date rape survivor who has successfully completed counseling and seen my attacker through two trials resulting in convictions for sexual assault and rape. I continue to speak up and provide victim’s impact statements for his parole hearings. I met my attacker on Match.com in 2004 when he drugged and raped me on our first and only date. As a victim I experienced the full range of our law enforcement process and criminal justice system resulting in a Life sentence for my attacker. Throughout that time-period I received trauma counseling for sexual assault/rape victims and made it to the other side healthier and stronger.

My first speech was encouraged by my WOAR (Women Organized Against Rape) counselor and given at a Take Back the Night event. I continued to pursue speaking because it helped me further in the healing process and realize it was my way of giving back after all the support I received. I then decided to continue speaking out and building awareness for the subject. I want to be an advocate of date rape and sexual assault victims who can’t speak for themselves.

I have been interviewed for and appeared in an ABC News 20/20 special, Discovery ID’s Very Bad Men and Web of Lies documentary series and the E! True Hollywood Story titled Social Media Nightmares. Each series profiled my attacker, his victims, the subsequent police investigations, and trials. My story will be featured in an upcoming episode of Charmed to Death on the ID network. I have been on several podcasts each telling my story as a survivor and speaking out against sexual assault and providing personal advice to the listeners. BBC News World Service Radio has also interviewed me several times on the subject.

Finally, I have contributed to several written and online publications.

Follow her on Facebook/JoAnnSpeaksOut and Twitter (X) @JoAnnSpeaksOut