![]() “These are very tricky, very fact-specific cases,” Joseph said. ![]() ![]() He pleaded no contest to two counts of misdemeanor battery and received six months of probation, according to court records. One of them, another first-time offender, Mark Thomas, was arrested on allegations that he fondled a drunk woman while she was passed out in a car. Kansas defense lawyer Christopher Joseph has represented numerous University of Kansas athletes. Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon sentenced him to four years in prison, citing his lack of criminal record and positive character references from family, according to the East Bay Times. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office asked for a 17-year sentence. They said Smith invited them to his room, restrained them and raped them, according to court documents. The women did not report the incidents to police but the judge in Smith’s case allowed them to testify for the prosecution. Another student who knew Smith said he tried to rape her but she managed to escape Smith by biting his shoulder while he was on top of her.Īfter his arrest two more women came forward with similar allegations. When she arrived he pushed her onto his bed, straddled her chest and forced her to perform oral sex before raping her, according to court documents. The first woman, a fellow student, said Smith invited her to his apartment for a tutoring session. Washington said the encounter was consensual, according to a police report.įormer University of California Berkeley football player Noah Smith was convicted in 2009 of raping one student and trying to rape another. After he finished the program in 2012 and transferred to Tuskegee University – where he continued his football career – ESPN revealed in 2014 that another Missouri student had accused him of rape in 2008, but police decided to not press charges, citing inconsistencies in her story. University of Missouri running back Derrick Washington served 120 days in a program for first-time offenders on a charge of deviate sexual assault of a former tutor. Often, one allegation would lead to another. Sometimes, encounters turned into he said/she said cases, with a woman claiming she was forced to the ground, a bed or against a wall, and raped as she shouted no, while the man said it was consensual. Usually, it involved a party or social gathering that included alcohol, after which people retreated to a dorm or apartment. In most of the cases, those involved were acquaintances, friends, former lovers or occasional flings. Eleven cases ended with no time, either through probation or suspended or deferred sentences 9 ended in acquittals or charges being dropped. Of those 52 cases, 33 led to criminal charges, resulting in 13 cases of prison or jail time, ranging from 20 years to three months. Through news reports and public records, CNN found 52 cases of NCAA Division I athletes investigated by police for allegations of sexual violence over the past 20 years 13 of them resulted in prison or jail time.Įach case was different, tried under different state laws by different prosecutors and defense lawyers and presided over by different judges, offering a window into the divergent paths seemingly similar accusations can take. Outcomes are hard to quantify because there’s no national database of college athletes accused, charged or convicted of sexual offenses. “More often than not in these cases, you see punishments that are way lower than the conduct seems to require.” Far too often we look at perpetrators in a less blameworthy way and minimize what happened to the victim,” said Long, chief executive officer of AEquitas: The Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women. “As stunning as the Stanford outcome was, it was not uncommon. But former Philadelphia prosecutor Jennifer Long said she has no reason to believe much has changed, especially in cases of one person’s word against another. Since then, there has been no meaningful, long-term research on the topic. Based on the analysis of 217 criminal complaints, the study found that 54% of arrests in the general population for sexual assault result in conviction, compared to 31% of athletes arrested for sexual assault. One frequently cited study, published in Sociology of Sport Journal in 1997, found that even though athletes are more likely to be arrested for sexual assault than the general population, they are less likely to be convicted. Studies have attempted to prove this with little empirical satisfaction. The athlete was 19 at the time of the assault. As with Turner, their age, clean record and community support – athletic privilege by another name – tend to weigh heavily in their favor.
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