She had been out one night in the Spring of 2017 when she ran into him outside The Boot. She said he approached her and asked her if they could go elsewhere to hang out alone. She said “sure,” but added that she needed to go up to her nearby dorm room to get something. She said that Callaghan followed her to her dorm. When she told him to wait outside, she said he insisted on coming upstairs. Then, she said, he cornered her in her room. That move caught her off guard, as she hadn’t actually intended to invite Callaghan upstairs.

When she asked Callagahn to leave, she said he refused. She then asked him to close his eyes while she changed her clothes, but then he grabbed her and began having sex with her, she said.

She said she told him to stop, as he was causing her pain from a previous injury–she had broken her back in 2013. Emma showed The Stranger a 2021 email exchange with her doctor, wherein she discussed this back injury and a subsequent MRI test she took over concerns that she had reinjured herself. When she alleges she was being assaulted by Callaghan, the pain from this past injury felt like “tearing a muscle,” she said.

She said she remembers crying and telling him, “You can’t do that, this hurts,” due to back and hip pain from her injury, but “he just told me to shut up.” She claimed she said ‘No’ “at least three times,” and in response Callaghan covered her mouth “at least once” but otherwise ignored her.

“I wasn’t a person in that moment. It was beyond being objectified. It was like I did not exist. It felt as if he was looking right through me,” she said.

There’s multiple allegations of sexual assault and rape against him.