Woman dropping suit against former UI student for sharing video of sexual assault

A woman who is suing two former Phi Gamma Delta fraternity members and its University of Iowa chapter over a sexual assault this week asked a judge to dismiss a separate suit against a UI student for sharing a video recording of the incident with others.

Makena Solberg, who identified herself in the lawsuits as a victim of the sexual assault, asked the court Monday to dismiss with prejudice — meaning it can’t be refiled — a lawsuit she filed against Broc Hawkins. Hawkins had denied the allegations, according to court documents.

Court documents don’t provide further details on why Solberg is dropping the suit.

The other lawsuit, filed against former UI students Carson Steffen and Jacob Meloan and the fraternity’s UI chapter, remains on track for a Nov. 5 trial. The trial was ordered moved last September out of Johnson County to Tama County. A judge cited a “violent protest” and “inflammatory” online comments after allegations about the incident went public two years ago.

A civil trial for that suit comes about four years after the alleged assault in September 2020 at the chapter’s house — which calls itself FIJI — in Iowa City. According to her lawsuit, Solberg said she was drugged, isolated in a room and assaulted by Steffen and Meloan, who recorded it and disseminated photos and video among FIJI brothers in an online group chat.

Although Solberg reported the incident to Iowa City police, authorities didn’t initially seek charges, and she went public about the incident on social media in fall 2021. It was that publicity — and, with it, online petitions and Facebook posts — that incited a large and violent protest in September 2021, damaging the FIJI house and forcing residents to relocate.

Fifteen months after the alleged sexual assault — and weeks after the protests — Iowa City police arrested Steffen on a charge of first-degree harassment. That case is on hold, pending resolution of the lawsuit. Police haven’t sought charges against Meloan.

Meloan filed his own lawsuit in Linn County District Court accusing 24 people of libel and slander for making “past and present public statements” accusing him of being “a rapist,” which “subjected him to ridicule and public contempt, and affected his education and employment, among other injuries.”

“These allegations are not and were never true,” Meloan argued in his lawsuit against a list of individuals, including past and present UI students, at least one UI worker and a person sharing Solberg’s last name — although not Solberg herself, given that he’s countered her lawsuit with affirmative defenses.

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