A Jewish academic awaiting sentencing for raping two women in Canberra has complained about the availability of kosher food in jail and claimed he has a pancreatic tumour.
Dr Richard Emory McGary Jr, 39, was found guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent by an ACT Supreme Court jury in July and had his bail revoked ahead of sentencing proceedings.
McGary, who has lodged an appeal, faced two previous trials – the first aborted and the second ending with a hung jury – but in the third was found to have raped one woman in his room at the Australian National University in 2016, and a second at a reserve in 2020.
During a sentencing hearing on Monday one victim said McGary had committed an act of “intimate destruction” and that he “chose, repeatedly, to cause immense harm”, ABC News reported.
Prosecutors read a statement from the second victim where she said McGary “gutted my trust” and had threatened her, her family and her dog, and forced her to endure a thousand days of PTSD while awaiting trial.
“I cannot fully describe the irreparable damage [McGary] has inflicted,” she said.
McGary told the court he still denied committing the offences and as a result would not take part in a sex offenders program in jail, where the court heard he has been bashed by other prisoners.
He complained kosher food was not available in jail, saying it had begun to be provided at some meals but not others.
McGary also told the court he did not have access to medications, and claimed he had a pancreatic tumour that was “not benign and has to go”, but was unable to provide proof when asked by prosecutor Trent Hickey.
Mr Hickey called for McGary to be jailed for a significant period of time, saying he was not remorseful, and that it was difficult to assess his prospects of rehabilitation.
“The difficulty is that he just does not believe he has done anything wrong,” Mr Hickey said.
McGary, who is a citizen of the United States but not Australia, will be sentenced in November, but the court requested evidence of his tumour diagnosis be provided beforehand.
In 2024 McGary sought to have his trial vacated on six grounds, including his Jewish ethnicity and faith, which he argued precluded the possibility of a fair trial due to the political climate at the time, but all were dismissed by Chief Justice Lucy McCallum.
In an online profile from 2019 McGary was described as a legal academic then studying a PhD in law at the ANU’s National Centre for Indigenous Studies on the topic of “Racism in the Criminal Law of Australia”.
“Rick has a long personal and family history of fighting institutional racism in the courtroom. He is himself a mixed race Texan with significant Cherokee Indian ancestry, a former researcher for the Innocence Project of Texas, the son of an international womens’ rights lawyer, and the grandson of the attorney who desegregated Texas public schools,” the profile states.
“Currently living in Canberra, Rick is incredibly grateful for the opportunities he is receiving in Australia, and hopes to help make a difference here as well.”
Header image: Rick McGary (Balmain Institute).
