On
December 7, 2012, a Florida State University (FSU) student reported
to Tallahassee police that she was raped the night before by an
unknown assailant after an evening of drinking. The alleged rapist
turned out to be FSU's star quarterback Jameis Winston, who claimed
that the sex was consensual. The charges were ultimately dropped for
lack of evidence. FSU went on to win the NCAA's national football
championship, and Winston won the Heisman trophy as the best college
football player of the year. An April 16 investgation by Walt Bogdanich of the New York Times
sheds further light on this incident.
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| Jameis Winston (©CBS Sports) |
When
the young woman reported to police, she had recent bruises and semen
was found on her underwear. Detective Scott Angulo was put in charge
of the case, but apparently there was almost no investigation. He
failed to pursue obvious leads that would have easily identified the
suspect and revealed that one of two teammates who witnessed the
encounter, Chris Cashner, had videotaped the event. (In this age of
cell phones, apparently some students like to film one another
having sex.)
On
January 10, 2013, Angulo got a huge break when the victim identified
her assailant by name after seeing him on campus. Even then, he
waited two weeks before taking the unusual step of calling Winston on
the phone to request an interview. Not surprisingly, Winston
lawyered up and never did speak to the police. The police finally
interviewed his two teammates (who supported his claim of innocence)
on November 14, almost a full year after the fact, but by that time, the tape had been erased. They
also took a DNA sample from Winston, which matched that found on the
accuser's clothing. On December 5, prosecutor William Meggs dropped
the charges due to lack of evidence. He acknowledged that there had
been deficiencies in the investigation, saying, “They just missed all the basic fundamental stuff that you are supposed to do.”
Meanwhile,
FSU appears to have violated federal law by conducting no official
investigation of the incident. Telephone records show that the
university was aware of the charges against Winston on January 13,
2013, when an assistant athletic director called the police to ask
about the progress of the investigation. Title IX of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act requires that when a university knows
about a case of student on student harrassment—obviously including
alleged rape—it “must promptly investigate to determine what occurred, and then take appropriate steps to resolve the situation.”
FSU refuses to discuss the case citing privacy concerns, but
whatever they did (if anything) did not interfere with their
successful football season.
A
strange presence lurking behind the scenes is the Seminole Boosters,
a nonprofit organization with $150 million in assets that
finances FSU varsity athletics. Bogdanich makes two interesting points. First, Detective Angulo had done private security work for
the Seminole Boosters prior to the investigation. Secondly, the
Boosters paid about 25% of FSU President—now Penn State
President—Eric Barron's $600,000 annual salary! (What does this
tell us about his job responsibilities?)
There
are obvious similarities between this incident and recent events at
Penn State. Former President Graham Spanier, Coach Joe Paterno, and
administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are accused of covering up
child molestation charges against Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky for
several years. Since then, elections to the Penn State Board of Trustees have pitted candidates representing Penn Staters for
Responsible Stewardship (PS4RS), who believe Paterno and his
colleagues did nothing wrong, against candidates who accept the Freeh
Report and NCAA sanctions against the university and want to move on.
So far, four of six PS4SR candidates have been elected. Another
round of Board of Trustees elections ends on May 8.
Penn
State football fans can apparently take comfort in the fact that
President-Elect Barron, in a situation with echoes of the Sandusky
scandal, showed a similar reluctance to pursue charges against an
important member of the football program.
Yesterday's
paper reports that Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) intends to conduct hearings on college sexual assault policies, and will invite victims,
administrators and university presidents to testify. She
specifically mentioned the Winston case in her remarks. The U. S.
Department of Education is reviewing FSU's handling of the
incident. We can only hope that President Barron will receive an
invitation to this party to share his perspective with the Senators.
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