John Jessup’s youngest daughter, Rachel, has come forward as the woman who he sexually assaulted in Las Vegas. She also expressed her disappointment that county voters elected Jessup to be on the council despite his arrest. Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
HANCOCK COUNTY — One of Rachel Jessup’s fondest childhood memories used to be going to the polls on Election Day with her dad, John Jessup.
Rachel started going to the polls with Jessup, a current Hancock County Commissioner, when she was about the age of a kindergartener. That’s when she tried to convince voters to select her dad over the other candidates when he was running for a state legislative leadership seat.
“‘Please vote for my daddy’ is what I used to say to voters,” Rachel said. “I was a typical 5-year-old kid who idolized my dad, and as I got older I always supported his political runs because I was his go-to person going to the polls with him. I was a daddy’s girl.”
Rachel, now a 22-year-old college student, is trying to forget Jessup, a man she now calls “John” instead of “Dad.” Rachel is Jessup’s youngest biological daughter and is the woman Jessup is accused of sexually assaulting during a drunken night in Las Vegas in late January.
The case was settled via a plea agreement signed in Las Vegas last week when Jessup admitted guilt to a lesser, Level B felony count of sexual assault that could still carry multiple years in prison. He was facing a Level A felony where he could have spent 20 years to life in prison. Jessup is set to be sentenced in April of 2025, and Rachel has decided, now that the case is wrapping up, it’s time to share the story of how John betrayed her.
Rachel was sexually assaulted by her father on the night of Jan. 25 in Las Vegas, she said, during what was supposed to be a celebration trip for her 21st birthday. The night, instead, turned into the worst of her life.
“He had taken all of my siblings to Las Vegas when they turned 21, and it was finally my turn to go,” Rachel said. “I never dreamed it would have ended up the way it did.”
Jessup was arrested and charged this past summer in June after officials in Las Vegas say he sexually assaulted his daughter there following a drunken night on the town. Jessup is accused of getting his daughter so drunk that she passed out, and then taking advantage of her against her knowledge or will.
“I’m not a big drinker, but as soon as we got there he started drinking and kept telling me I had to keep up with him, and he kept ordering me drinks and making me drink them, getting me drunk,” Rachel said.
Rachel made it clear prior to the night of the assault that Jessup had never touched her in an inappropriate manner. However, she noted, the two did have a “strained” relationship due to his third wife, who Rachel said she and her siblings did not get along with.
“Following my parents’ divorce I was really the only one of us four kids who really kind of had any kind of relationship with him,” Rachel said. “But, he was never a real father figure. He was more like a friend than a parent, and ever since that night I will always call him ‘John’ and not ‘Dad.’”
Rachel said she never imagined Jessup would get her drunk and then sexually assault her. But, looking back, the fact he didn’t want her to bring her longtime boyfriend to Las Vegas makes her wonder if Jessup didn’t plan the way the night unfolded.
“I was kind of excited to go because all my other siblings had gone, and he said his mom, my paternal grandmother, and her husband were going with us, so I thought it would be OK,” Rachel said. “My boyfriend really didn’t want me going without him, but he didn’t want to keep me from seeing Las Vegas, so I went.”
It’s a decision Rachel says she now regrets.
Rachel noted she and Jessup were in one room, which had two separate beds, while her grandmother and her husband shared another room.
“When I woke up, I knew I had been touched in a way I did not want to be touched,” Rachel said. “I knew there was also a time period where I was passed out and I don’t know what happened.”
Rachel noted as soon as she realized what Jessup had done to her, she left the room called her boyfriend, mother and stepfather and left Las Vegas on the first available flight. When she returned to Indiana, her family picked her up at the airport and supported her decision to tell officials what happened.
“When I was at the Las Vegas airport, I was shaking, crying and talking to multiple strangers who were trying to help me, and I was talking to my mom on the phone and somehow I got on a plane and got home,” Rachel said. “Once I was in the car with my mom and stepdad, I told them the full story of what happened.”
The next day, Jan. 27, Rachel and her stepfather, who is an ex-state law enforcement official and a former sexual assault nurse, took Rachel to the police station and to a hospital where an official report was given.
That started the process of holding Jessup accountable, something Rachel admits she was at first torn about doing.
“It was hard because at this point in our lives, some of my siblings had started to get a better relationship with John, but it came to the point where I started thinking about my nieces and my nephews, and I had to protect them,” Rachel said. “I refuse to let anything like what happened to me happen to them, and for my future children I was not going to let this pattern continue in our family, and all my siblings and my family, everyone stood behind me.”
Rachel credits officials with the Shirley Police Department for making sure Jessup was held accountable. They conducted an interview with Jessup for the Las Vegas Police Department. During that interview, Jessup admitted to touching his daughter in an “inappropriate manner.” They filed that report with Las Vegas officials, who ended up arresting Jessup this summer and charging him with sexual assault.
“This has been a really long road,” Rachel said. “I’ve had days where it’s been hard to get out of bed, where I can’t work or I couldn’t go to school, and I even ended up taking a full semester off from college because of it.”
Rachel is now trying to process the assault and her childhood, trying to figure out what was real about her relationship with Jessup and what was wrong.
“I’m looking back at everything and just wondering what his intentions were the whole time,” she said. “There are just a lot of feelings and processing, and that will continue, and it all plays on my emotions.”
Rachel and officials in Las Vegas say they will be asking the court there to punish Jessup to the fullest extent of the law when he’s sentenced on April 24. The crime could land Jessup in prison up to 20 years.
“I think this is one of the worst parts of all of this but also one of the best,” Rachel said. “The judge who handled the plea agreement told him to prepare for prison time, and he’s probably hoping for probation time or house arrest, but I highly doubt that will happen.”
Rachel and her siblings plan to be in Las Vegas for the sentencing hearing she said, “Both he and the judge are going to see a united family front.”
During the settlement conference, Jessup’s attorney tried to convince the court that Jessup’s actions on the night when Rachel was assaulted were a one-time thing due to alcohol and that Jessup was an upstanding citizen. However, Rachel said the prosecutors showed the judge a Daily Reporter article in which a county department head accused Jessup of sexual harassment.
“Our attorney showed that story to the judge,” Rachel said. “It indicates a pattern of his behavior.”
During the recent general election — despite reports of the sexual assault — the community voted for Jessup to become a member of the Hancock County Council starting Jan. 1, 2025.
“It was heartbreaking to see those results, but I had to do a lot of soul searching and tell myself, ‘The voters, they just don’t know what he did to me,’” she said. “I just told myself, ‘They’re uninformed. You can’t be mad because they don’t have the full story.’ But now they do. They know about the incompetence, and it’s that incompetence that failed that 5-year-old little girl.”
Jessup told county officials he will step down from the elected position as a council member as soon as he is sworn in — due to the state law that convicted felons cannot become elected officials. Jessup will be a felon once officially sentenced April 24. His resignation is expected to come before the year is out, county officials say.
In the meantime, Rachel is pushing forward and plans to graduate college this spring and head to graduate school, where she’s studying social work.
“However horrible this was — and it was horrible — I know it could have been a million times worse if he had assaulted me my whole life, but that breaks my heart for other people,” Rachel said. “I’ll never understand how anyone can do this to any woman, especially their own daughter.”
Rachel said that she was pleased that many people in the county knew she was at the center of the case, believed her side of the story and kept her name quiet until she was ready to come forward.
“They protected me over him, and I’m incredibly thankful,” Rachel said. “I want it known it’s OK to come forward, and while it’s hard, it’s good to share what happened, and I hope, if he hurt anyone else, they will please come forward.”
