Was it love, or was it abuse? There is a new program on Netflix that is mostly about this controversial question.
“Tell Them You Love Me” tells the story of Anna Stubblefield, a former senior professor at Rutgers University who had an affair with Derrick Johnson, a man with cerebral palsy who can’t talk.
Johnson’s family didn’t like that Stubblefield kept saying she and Johnson were in love. The fight led to a trial in 2015, where Stubblefield was found guilty of a crime and sent to prison for 22 months, according to The New York Times.
Even after all these years, Stubblefield still says that her friendship with Johnson started because she loved him. Continue reading to find out more about Stubblefield and the trial that called into question what permission means.
Who is Anna Stubblefield?
Philosophy teacher Stubblefield worked at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ. It was reported by NBC Philadelphia in 2016 that she was married with two kids when she was having a sexual relationship with Johnson.
A 2015 story in the Times said that both of Stubblefield’s parents had Ph. D.s in special education and had worked with disabled people for a long time. Sandra McClennen, her mother, worked with blind and mentally disabled kids and was one of the first people to use facilitated communication, or F.C., a type of support method that claims to help disabled people talk to others.
For more than 20 years, McClennen worked as an F.C., and during Stubblefield’s trial in 2015, she was still working with clients as a facilitator. Stubblefield worked on F.C. with her clients, such as Johnson, whom she described as “a fast learner.”
True crime recommendation: ‘Tell Them You Love Me’, on the Anna Stubblefield case: https://t.co/IZ44OLHa7X
— Jeremy Gans (@jeremy_gans) July 10, 2024
(This YouTube upload is seemingly illegal and presumably wont last. It’s on US Netflix but not in Australia.)
Find out how Stubblefield and Johnson met
It was 2009, and Stubblefield was 41 years old. Johnson was 30 years old at the time. They met through Johnson’s brother, who was taking one of Stubblefield’s classes at Rutgers. The Times says that Stubblefield showed a movie in class about a disabled girl who couldn’t talk but learned to type through F.C. Then, Johnson’s brother asked Stubblefield if Johnson could also learn to talk through F.C.
Stubblefield worked closely with Johnson for the next two years, practicing F.C. and supporting his hand while he pointed to and typed letters on a computer. Stubblefield and Johnson became closer during that time, and The Telegraph claimed in January 2024 that they had s*x at Stubblefield’s office on the Rutgers campus.
How come facilitated conversation is not widely accepted?
Even though it was famous in the 1990s as a way to talk to people who couldn’t speak, most people now avoid F.C.
It was called a “discredited technique” by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 2018. They also said that “there is extensive scientific evidence — produced over several decades and across several countries — that messages are authored by the ‘facilitator’ rather than the person with a disability.”
The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities felt the same way. The group’s board of directors said in 2019 in a statement, “Based on the current scientific evidence, the Board does not support the use of Facilitated Communication.”
Additionally, the statement said, “FC and RPM may not help people voice their thoughts, desires, and choices; instead, they may effectively silence them.”
How did everyone know that Stubblefield and Johnson were relationship?
In 2011, Stubblefield and Johnson told Johnson’s family that they were dating. Johnson’s brother John Johnson set the scene as a taster for the program.
“Everyone sits down, and something feels off,” he said. “Through the keyboard, she says, ‘We are in love,'” she said.
Jones’s mom, Daisy Johnson, said, “She said, ‘Yes, we have made love.'” Stubblefield told her that Derrick Johnson is “a man in every sense of the word,” she added.
NBC 10 Philadelphia claimed that Johnson’s brother trashed Stubblefield in court in January 2016 by saying, “She is not Sandra Bullock and this is not ‘The Blind Side.'” “She raped my brother,” he said.
For another story from NBC 10 Philadelphia, Stubblefield said she did not rape Johnson and that he could have hit the floor to show that he did not want to have s*x with her.
Now, where is Stubblefield?
The NBC affiliate said that Stubblefield was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and given a 12-year prison term in 2016. Before she could be released on parole, she had to serve about 10 years of her term. Stubblefield also had to sign up as a s*x offender and agree to be supervised on release for life.
In 2017, NBC New York stated that Stubblefield’s conviction was overturned by a New Jersey state appellate court. She was given a new trial with a different judge.
Read more: Detroit Police Commissioner Resigns After S*x Worker Spotted In Car
Officials say that Bryan Ferguson, who was on the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, quit after being punished
Stubblefield’s lawyer said that an expert in F.C. should have been able to speak because it would have helped the jury believe that Johnson could agree to s*x. Due to F.C. being seen as a “junk pseudoscience,” the expert was not allowed to speak.
According to the Daily Orange, Stubblefield pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal sexual contact in 2017. She said she knew Johnson could not legally agree, but she did not. The Times reported in 2018 that her guilty plea did not mean she admitted that she thinks Johnson is not mentally capable of being an adult or that she had meant to write out his words in her mind.
Stubblefield took a plea deal the same year and was given time served as his term.
No matter how guilty she was, Stubblefield said in the documentary clip, “I’m not guilty of a crime.”
Belmont Filmhouse says that Stubblefield is no longer married and lives outside of the public eye.
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