**2015**STROBELIGHT**MUHAMMAD**ALI**ENDURANCE**SPORTS**AWARD**MR**JAMEIS**WINSTON**
**PAM**THE**SHAM**.**COM**
**A**21ST**CENTURY**WEBCHANNEL**
**S*ERVICE**H*UMILIY**A*PPRECIATION**M*OTIVATION**
[SlideDeck2 id=19348 iframe=1]
**KING**SOLOMON*S**WISDOM**
**PROVERBS**20**
**24**
**MAN*S**GOINGS**
**ARE**
**OF**GOD**ALMIGHTY**
**EL*SHADDAI**I**AM**THAT**
**I**AM**JEHOVAH**ISHI**YAHWEH**
**HOW**CAN**A**MAN**
**THEN**UNDERSTAND**
**HIS**OWN**WAY**
**MUCH**LOVE**
Florida State University: Jameis Winston Rose Bowl Game Interview
Release: 01/02/2015
By Tim Linafelt
Seminoles.com Senior Writer
@Tim_Linafelt on Twitter
PASADENA, Calif. – If Jameis Winston had his way, he and his Florida State teammates would have turned right back around following their 59-20 defeat to Oregon at the Rose Bowl and played the Ducks for another 60 minutes.
In Winston’s mind, the final score hid how closely the Seminoles and Ducks played for more than a half. And he might have a point. FSU trailed by just five points before a run of five straight turnovers allowed Oregon to build an insurmountable lead.
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Jameis Winston Walks Away From ESPN Interview Over Rape Investigation Questions
Earlier this week, the Florida State Attorney’s decided not to file sexual assault charges against Florida State quarterback Jameis … -
Jameis Winston Goofs on Clinton’s Corner
While spending time at ACC Kickoff Florida State QB Jameis Winston sits down with ACC Digital Network analyst and Miami great …- HD
“It was never over,” Winston said. “Honestly. It was never over. We just got beat, turned the ball over too many times.
“But it still ain’t over yet. We can go play again, honest.”
The game, of course, is officially over and with its result comes new territory for Winston and several other Seminoles.
Winston’s record as a starter, which had maintained a “zero” in the loss column for 25 straight games, now features a one.
“It hurts badder than whatever you can imagine,” he said.
Turnovers aside, Winston and the FSU offense played very well at times.
Winston went toe-to-toe with Heisman-winning counterpart Marcus Mariota and completed more passes for more yardage than the Oregon quarterback.
He not only connected on 64.4 percent of his passes for 348 yards, he did it while delivering a number of throws into small windows.
And Winston’s lone interception came only after a pass bounced off of freshman receiver Travis Rudolph’s chest.
“I thought he had a pretty good day for the most part, played very well,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said. “(Made) a lot of reads, getting the ball to guys.”
But, like most Seminoles on Thursday, Winston’s day didn’t come without a few moments he’d like to have back.
With FSU trailing 39-20 late in the third quarter, Winston took a fourth-and-5 snap and, for a moment, appeared on the cusp of a highlight-reel play.
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Jameis Winston spring game interview
Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston opens up about his two-sport life, getting in rhythm with the wide receivers, discusses … -
Winston Still Striving To Be Better
After winning a Heisman Trophy and a national championship in his freshman year, Jameis Winston is still striving to be better on … -
Jameis Winston After BCS Title Win
Freshman Florida State QB Jameis Winston win’s the Heisman, leads FSU to an undefeated season and a BCS title.- HD
He scrambled and evaded two Ducks defenders but, as he reeled back to pass, Winston slipped and lost control of the ball. It went backwards, Oregon’s Tony Washington picked it up and ran for an easy 58-yard score.
“It kind of looked like he slipped on a banana,” Oregon linebacker Torrodney Prevot said. “Like in cartoons.”
“I was just trying to make a play,” Winston said. “I never thought that I would slip, throw the ball backwards. It’s just a very unfortunate play, but that’s football.”
In his disappointment, Winston expressed optimism for FSU’s future.
“The good thing is we live to fight another day,” he said. “We’ve all got great futures, man.”
Winston left open the possibility that he’d be a part of FSU’s future. As a rising redshirt junior, Winston is eligible to declare for the 2015 NFL draft.
But Winston, who also plays on the FSU baseball team, hinted that he might be gearing up for another season on the diamond.
“I’m not focused on that at all,” he said. “I’m looking forward to next season and playing baseball.
“So I’m just trying to get better every day.”
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Jameis Winston – AHSAA Media Days 2011
Luke Robinson of the AHSAA Radio Network interview Hueytown, Alabama Quarterback Jameis Winston from the 2011 AHSAA …- HD
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Jameis Winston Interview
We catch up with the number 1 QB in the ESPNU 150, Jameis Winston on signing day. -
Jameis Winston wins the Heisman Trophy
Jameis Winston, Florida State quarterback, beats out AJ McCarron, Jordan Lynch, Andre Williams, Johnny Manziel and Tre …- HD
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Jameis Winston Interview: October 16
Courtesy of http://www.seminoles.com: Hear from freshman quarterback Jameis Winston about preparing to take on Clemson.
Jameis Winston | Quarterback
Team: | Florida State Seminoles |
Ht / Wt: | 6’4′ / 230 |
Latest News
Recent News
- QB Winston top prospect based on game film
Mon, Dec 29, 2014 09:56:00 PM - Winston: I’ll pass on anyone, even CB Sherman
Sun, Dec 28, 2014 09:45:00 PM - Bedard: If just on talent, Jameis would be 1
Tue, Dec 23, 2014 10:25:00 AM - Winston impresses w/ progression willingness
Sun, Dec 21, 2014 06:14:00 PM
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Jamies Winston talks Oregon, Rose Bowl, FSU offense
In this extended interview, FSU quarterback Jameis Winston talks about the challenge of taking on Oregon in the Rose Bowl, …- New
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Jameis Winston Interview: November 13
Courtesy http://www.seminoles.com: Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston meets with the media on Wednesday evening. -
ESPNU Road Trip Raw: Jameis Winston Interview (Full)
Episodes every Wednesday evening on ESPNU during the College Football season! Tweet us! @ESPNURoadTrip Instagram: …- HD
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Crabbin around with Jameis Winston (Spoof Interview)
Spoof interview. Comment below who you want me to do next.- HD
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Jameis Winston Postgame: NC State
Quarterback Jameis Winston talks with the media following Florida State’s 56-41 victory over the Wolfpack.
Winston was born in Bessemer, Alabama on January 6, 1994.[1] He attended Hueytown High School, where he played both football and baseball.[2] Winston was considered the best dual-threat quarterback recruit in the nation by Rivals.com,[3] the best overall QB recruit by ESPN.[4] Winston was also named the MVP of the ESPN RISE Elite 11 quarterback camp.[5][6] Additionally, Winston earned the Gatorade Player of the Year recognition, for the state of Alabama.[2] He led Hueytown to a state championship during his junior year.
Winston committed to attend Florida State University on February 3, 2012.[7] The Texas Rangers selected Winston in the 15th round of the 2012 Major League Baseball Draft out of high school. Though the Rangers proposed allowing him to play for the Florida State Seminoles football team while working out with their baseball organization, Winston decided not to sign.[8][9]
Florida State Seminoles — No. 5 | |
Quarterback | Sophomore |
Date of birth: January 6, 1994 | |
Place of birth: Bessemer, Alabama[1] | |
Height: 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) | Weight: 230 lb (104 kg) |
Career history | |
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High school: Hueytown (AL) | |
College(s):
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Career highlights and awards | |
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Stats at ESPN.com |
**COLLEGE**CAREER**
Football
Winston redshirted during the 2012 college football season behind senior quarterback EJ Manuel.[10]
2013 season
During Winston’s college debut in 2013, he completed 25 of 27 passes with four passing touchdowns along with a rushing touchdown against the University of Pittsburgh.[11]
Winston finished his freshman season with 4,057 passing yards and 40 passing touchdowns, which set an ACC record and a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision freshman record. He led his team to an undefeated 14–0 record, winning the ACC championship and the BCS National Championship Game.[12]
Winston won the Heisman Trophy on December 14, 2013, beating out quarterbacks AJ McCarron, Jordan Lynch, and Johnny Manziel, the previous winner, as well as running backs Tre Mason and Andre Williams.[13] He became the second freshman to win the award, after Manziel won the previous year. Winston is also the youngest to win the award, at 19 years and 342 days.[14]
On January 6, 2014, Winston’s 20th birthday, Florida State defeated Auburn 34–31 in the 2014 BCS National Championship Game in Pasadena, CA with Winston winning the MVP award.[15][16]
**QB**JAMEIS**WINSTON**CLEARED**IN**
**CONDUCT**HEARING**
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was cleared Sunday of the accusations he faced at a student code of conduct hearing involving an alleged sexual assault two years ago.
Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Major Harding wrote in a letter to Winston that the evidence was “insufficient to satisfy the burden of proof.” Prosecutor Willie Meggs made a similar decision a year ago when he decided not to criminally charge Winston, citing a lack of evidence.
This month, a two-day hearing was held to determine whether Winston violated four sections of the code of conduct — two for sexual misconduct and two for endangerment.
The ramifications for Winston ranged from a reprimand to expulsion from school.
The woman can request an appeal within five days.
“We will consider an appeal but right now we feel a little duped,” Baine Kerr, one of the woman’s lawyers, said in an emailed statement. “At some point we have to recognize that Florida State is never going to hold James Winston responsible.”
AP is not identifying the woman because it does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse.
“Somehow Jameis Winston still wins,” Kerr said. “The order doesn’t even follow the Student Conduct Code and it ignores the bulk of the evidence.”
Kerr said that between his client, Winston, and two teammates that were at the off-campus apartment — Chris Casher and Ronald Darby — only the woman would answer questions about what happened.
Winston did submit a lengthy statement detailing his version of events.
Florida State president John Thrasher said the university selected the former state Supreme Court justice to remove any doubt about the integrity of the process.
“He (Harding) conducted a thorough Student Conduct Code hearing and reviewed more than 1,000 pages of evidence generated by three other investigations, and we would like to thank him sincerely for his service,” Thrasher said.
Harding wrote that both sides’ version of the events had strengths and weaknesses, but he did not find the credibility of one “substantially stronger than the other.”
“In sum, the preponderance of the evidence has not shown that you are responsible for any of the charged violations of the Code,” Harding wrote.
Winston family adviser David Cornwell did not respond to requests for comment.
Cornwell has contended that attorneys for the former student pushed for the hearing after they were rebuffed in an attempt to reach a settlement with Winston.
Florida State faces Oregon in the College Football Playoffs semifinal on Jan. 1. Before the ruling, there were questions whether Winston would be available to play. The Seminoles won a national championship with Winston at the helm last season and have not lost a game since he earned the starting job before the beginning of the 2013 season.
Florida State is currently being investigated by the Department of Education on how hit handles possible Title IX violations. The woman who said Winston assaulted her filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, which decided the university should be investigated for possible Title IX violations over the way it responds to sexual violence complaints.
Title IX is a federal statute that bans discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. The Department of Education in 2011 warned schools of their legal responsibilities to immediately investigate allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence, even if the criminal investigation has not concluded.
The following is the statement Jameis Winston provided former Florida Supreme Court justice Major Harding as part of a Florida State State code of conduct hearing that concluded Tuesday. The statement was obtained by USA TODAY Sports, and the name of the woman who has accused Winston of sexually assaulting her has been redacted. It includes graphic sexual descriptions.
This statement contains my best recollection of my involvement with (NAME REDACTED). I apologize for the graphic nature of the matters I describe, but given the false accusations against me it is important to describe fully and accurately my interaction with (NAME REDACTED) to demonstrate that she willingly engaged in multiple consensual sexual acts with me with her full knowledge and consent. (NAME REDACTED) is lying about me. I have no choice but to tell the truth about her.
I did not rape or sexually assault (NAME REDACTED). I did not create a hostile, intimidating or offensive environment in the short period of time that we were together. (NAME REDACTED) had the capacity to consent to having sex with me and she repeatedly did so by her conduct and her verbal expressions. I never used physical violence, threats, or other coercive means towards (NAME REDACTED). Finally, I never endangered (NAME REDACTED) health, safety, or well-being.
In the late evening of December 6, 2012 or the early morning of December 7, 2012, Chris Casher, Ron Darby, and I arrived at Potbelly’s. Many of my teammates were also at Potbelly’s. At some point, I noticed an attractive girl dancing on the dance floor. A few teammates and I started dancing as well and I worked my way over to this girl and made small talk with her as we started dancing together. I asked her for her name and she asked me for mine. I told her my name. She said her name was “(NAME REDACTED).” To the best of my recollection, (NAME REDACTED) and I danced together for approximately 10 minutes. When we finished dancing, we continued to talk and I asked (NAME REDACTED) for her telephone number. It was loud in Potbelly’s, so, rather than yelling her telephone number at me, (NAME REDACTED) took my cellular phone and entered her telephone number into my phone.
After (NAME REDACTED) entered her telephone number into my cell phone, we talked some more. I mentioned something about staying in touch or getting together later and then I went to mingle with my friends. Chris saw me talking to (NAME REDACTED) at the bar and told me he had already gotten (NAME REDACTED) number from (NAME REDACTED).
I did not buy (NAME REDACTED) a drink. I did not give (NAME REDACTED) a drink of any kind. I did not give her a shot of any kind. I did not give or offer to give any drugs to (NAME REDACTED).
Around the time Potbelly’s was closing, Chris, Ron and I left Potbelly’s and socialized in front of Potbelly’s. Chris and I thought that (NAME REDACTED) was interested in both of us. I decided to send (NAME REDACTED) a text message letting her know that I was leaving and asking her whether she was ready to leave. Given our prior interaction and her response, I believe that it was clear to (NAME REDACTED) that my intent with the text was to find out whether she wanted to leave and go home with me. (NAME REDACTED) replied to my text saying in substance that she was ready to leave and was coming outside.
Chris, Ron and I were standing next to a taxi cab when (NAME REDACTED) came outside and voluntarily walked over to us. I do not recall exactly what was said, but we made it clear that we were leaving and (NAME REDACTED) made it clear that she wanted to leave with us. Since Potbelly’s was closing, there were a bunch of students outside of Potbelly’s, around the outside bar, and there were a bunch of taxicabs parked at the curb in front of Potbelly’s.(NAME REDACTED) voluntarily left with us.
(NAME REDACTED) was not “taken,” forced, or “coerced” into the taxicab. She was fully aware of what was happening; she voluntarily left Potbelly’s in response to my text and she voluntarily got into the taxicab. If (NAME REDACTED) had protested, then I would have left her at Potbelly’s. Additionally, if she had protested, the students and taxi cab drivers in front of Potbelly’s would have heard her. (NAME REDACTED) was fully aware of her actions and she did not protest at all. (NAME REDACTED) left with us voluntarily.
The taxi cab ride to my apartment took roughly five minutes. During the ride, everyone was cheerful and talking. We asked (NAME REDACTED) if she had any friends who might want to come to our place and join us. I recall that she was calling some friends to come to our apartment.
Chris and I lived together in an apartment on the first floor of the Legacy Suites. After we arrived, (NAME REDACTED), Chris, Ron, and I went into my apartment.
Almost immediately upon our arrival, (NAME REDACTED) and I went into my bedroom. We were standing facing each other, kissing and touching each other’s bodies. I eventually asked (NAME REDACTED) if she would perform oral sex on me. She said that she would. The lights in my bedroom were on and (NAME REDACTED) willingly performed oral sex on me. While (NAME REDACTED) was performing oral sex, I was close enough to my dresser to reach over to it, open a drawer, and retrieve a condom.
(NAME REDACTED) and I also engaged in intense foreplay and heavy petting during the same period that she was performing oral sex. I was with her on the bed during foreplay and I may have ejaculated a small amount of semen onto her clothing. (NAME REDACTED) assisted me in putting on the condom. I stood on the floor with (NAME REDACTED) on the bed and we engaged in consensual sexual intercourse. After sometime in this position, we changed positions. I got on my bed on my back and (NAME REDACTED) got on top of me. (NAME REDACTED) conduct and other verbal expressions left no doubt that our sex was consensual.
I recall hearing Chris and Ron outside of my room. The door to my room was broken so the door could not close fully or be locked. At some point, Chris came into the room. (NAME REDACTED), who was still on top of me, saw Chris and told him to get out of the room.
Chris left voluntarily. Chris did not tell me to stop having sex with (NAME REDACTED). Chris did not do or say anything to try to persuade me to stop having sex with (NAME REDACTED). (NAME REDACTED) did not do or say anything to Chris to express or indicate that she was being forced to have sex with me. In fact, after Chris left the room, (NAME REDACTED) got up to close the door completely. I told her that the door was broken and did not close all of the way or lock. (NAME REDACTED) then turned the lights off and returned to me.
Thereafter, either Ron or Chris pushed the door open as a prank. (NAME REDACTED) asked me if there was any way we could have more privacy. I took her into my bathroom. While in the bathroom, we began to have consensual sex again and eventually concluded having sex. After we finished having sex, we stayed in the bathroom for a few minutes talking and she then indicated that she was ready to leave.
FSU’s Jameis Winton was silent when asked about rape allegations against him while leaving a conduct hearing Tuesday.
(NAME REDACTED) dressed herself. While she was dressing, I asked (NAME REDACTED) where she lived and she told me that her place was not far from mine. I also got dressed and we left my apartment and got on my scooter. (NAME REDACTED) sat behind me on the scooter and wrapped her arms around my waist. After a short ride, perhaps three to five minutes, we arrived at the curb in front of Salley Hall. When I stopped at the curb, (NAME REDACTED) got off the scooter, gave me a hug, and walked through the Salley Hall walkway to her dorm, Kellum Hall.
Other than asking Chris to leave the room, (NAME REDACTED) did not say or do anything to express or indicate that she was upset about anything that occurred before, during, or after consensual sexual activities. From the time I met (NAME REDACTED) at Potbelly’s to the time that I dropped her off at her dormitory, (NAME REDACTED) was fully aware of her surroundings and in control of all of her faculties. She was responsive and communicative. She had a pleasant personality and was fun to be with. During our consensual sexual interactions, (NAME REDACTED) engaged in sexual talk and took other actions that made it clear that the sex was consensual and that she was enjoying having sex with me. If (NAME REDACTED) did not want to have oral sex or intercourse with me, she was fully capable of expressing it to me, the taxicab drivers, the numerous students outside of Potbelly’s, Chris, and/or Ron. Had she done so, I would have stopped immediately.
Rape is a vicious crime. The only thing as vicious as rape is falsely accusing someone of rape. (NAME REDACTED) and her lawyers have falsely accused me, threatened to sue me, demanded $7,000,000 from me, engaged in a destructive media campaign against me, and manipulated this process to the point that my rights have and will continue to be severely compromised. (NAME REDACTED) and her lawyers’ public campaign to vilify me guarantees that her false allegations will follow me for the rest of my life.
At some point they will be held accountable, so I have determined that it is in my best interests to exercise my right pursuant to Rule 6C2R-3.004 (6)(d)of the Florida State University Student Code of Conduct and answer questions when experienced lawyers and other experts can assist me in confronting (NAME REDACTED) false accusation and when (NAME REDACTED) is subject to the penalty of perjury and other claims for (NAME REDACTED) falsely accusing me of rape.
Jameis Winston’s FSU hearing ends, no decision
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A two-day hearing at Florida State that could determine quarterback Jameis Winston‘s future at the university ended on Wednesday with no decision and no definitive timetable on when the case will be resolved.
The hearing, which was held approximately two years after a female student said Winston sexually assaulted her in December 2012, was held to determine whether Winston violated any or all of four sections of the code of conduct – two for sexual misconduct and two for endangerment.
John Clune, an attorney representing the woman at the closed hearing, did predict that the former Florida State Supreme Court justice presiding over the proceedings will announce his decision by the end of the year.
Justice Major Harding has given both sides up to five days to submit a proposed order on what they think the outcome should be, Clune said. Harding will use those briefs as the basis for his decision, which is supposed to come within 10 class days after the hearing ends.
Both parties have an opportunity to request an appeal within five days of the initial hearing decision. Florida State’s fall semester ends next week and the potential ramifications for Winston range from a reprimand to expulsion from school.
Attorneys for both Winston and the former FSU student had starkly different assessments of how the hearing went for their clients.
David Cornwell, an adviser for Winston and his family, said the hearing contained ”more inconsistencies” and ”more lies” about what happened in December 2012. He said that there was ”no evidence” presented that should prompt a hearing officer to find Winston violated FSU’s conduct rules. Cornwell repeated his assertions that the entire point of the hearing was to establish a record that could be used in a potential civil lawsuit against the Heisman Trophy winner.
”It was clear what this was about, absolutely clear what this was about, it is a shakedown,” Cornwell said.
Clune brushed aside Cornwell’s statements, saying that the hearing went well enough that he thinks there is enough evidence presented to convince the hearing officer to expel Winston from school.
”The testimony came in as we had hoped it would,” Clune said.
Clune also said the prospect of a civil lawsuit could depend on what happens to Winston.
Winston was never arrested following an investigation of the woman’s allegation. Prosecutor Willie Meggs declined to file criminal charges last year, citing a lack of evidence.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse.
The hearing was closed to the public and media. Winston did not speak to reporters outside the campus building and is expected to lead the Seminoles against Georgia Tech Saturday in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game.
While Clune acknowledged that his client had testified, a document obtained by the AP states that Winston used his right in the student code to refuse to answer questions from the hearing officer.
The document, which was Winston’s five-page statement in the case, says that he would only answer questions in a legal proceeding where the woman could be charged with perjury if she lied.
In his statement, Winston said he had consensual sex with the woman in his apartment and that he never used ”physical violence, threats or other coercive means” to get her to have sex with him. He also said he did not buy her a drink when they first met at a Tallahassee bar nor did he give her any drugs. Winston also said the woman never seemed upset and even hugged him when he dropped her off at an FSU dorm.
When informed of Winston’s statement, Clune questioned its merits.
”This was not testimony,” Clune told the AP, ”but just something obviously written by his lawyer. Mr. Winston still has yet to answer our questions about his conduct.”
The hearing was held as Florida State is investigated by the U.S. Department of Education on how it handles possible Title IX violations. The woman who said Winston assaulted her filed a complaint with the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which decided the university should be investigated for the way it responds to sexual violence complaints.
Title IX is a federal statute that bans discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. The Department of Education in 2011 warned schools of their legal responsibilities to immediately investigate allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence, even if the criminal investigation has not concluded.
—
Associated Press Writer Kareem Copeland contributed to this report.
Jameis Winston Is Not A Victim
Expand
By now, you’ve read or heard about Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston’s explicit, detailed statement denying that he is guilty of rape, in which he (or someone writing on his behalf) makes the remarkable assertion that “[t]he only thing as vicious as rape is falsely accusing someone of rape.” It’s not unusual for accused rapists to go on the offensive; defense lawyers have long since figured out that it’s easier to smear the credibility of a victim than to prove a client’s innocence. But, even against that backdrop, Winston’s statement is truly remarkable in its self-victimization.
There’s no doubt that being falsely accused of rape is a dreadful thing that no one should have to endure. One of the reasons it is such a dreadful thing is that false accusations of rape basically do not happen. Statistically, between 2% and 8% of reported rapes are found to be false, but only about 40% of rapes are reported. Do a little math and that means that, for every false accusation of rape, there are up to 100 actual rapes that take place. There were 83,000 forcible rapes reported to the authorities in 2011, which means there were somewhere between 1,500 and 6,500 false accusations of rape. In a country of 300,000,000. Over a year. That makes your odds of being falsely accused of rape at somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 to 1. (The odds of actually being arrested are even less, since only one in 10 rapists is ever arrested, putting the odds of you being arrested, let alone convicted, on a false charge at about two million to one.) Let’s put this in context: the odds that you will be falsely accused of rape are basically the same as the odds that you or someone in your family will be struck by lightning. Your odds of being falsely accused of rape are about the same as your odds of being attacked by a shark. Or, if you prefer to put this in football terms, your odds of falsely being accused of rape are substantially longer than the chances of the 2-10 Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning this year’s Super Bowl. So, yes, one must be extraordinarily unlucky to be falsely accused of rape. But this is precisely why drawing an equivalence between rape and false rape accusations is so bankrupt. One is a pervasive social problem that affects millions; the other is a freak occurrence, like the birth of a two-headed calf.
Let’s take this out of the realm of generalities, though; after all, Winston isn’t making an abstract complaint about the fate of a poor working man reliant on an overworked and indifferent public defender who finds himself falsely accused of rape, but a more specific one, about the effects of being accused of rape have had or could have on him. What are the consequences of being falsely accused of rape to a big-time football star, like Jameis Winston? A look at other athletes might be instructive. Mike Tyson was convicted of rape. When he was released from prison, he was welcomed back to the world of boxing with open arms and proceeded to earn a series of record-setting paydays. Today, he has his own cartoon show. ESPN even tweeted him birthday wishes. (How many other convicted felons get birthday wishes from the Worldwide Leader?) Kobe Bryant was accused of rape and settled out of court with his accuser. He didn’t miss any time on the court and while he temporarily lost a few sponsors, most eventually took him back. He earned $31 million in endorsements last year, despite being a non-factor on the court. Ben Roethlisberger was suspended a few games after repeated allegations of sexual assault. He’s just fine. None of these extremely high profile cases meaningfully impacted the athlete’s career earning potential, even though the allegations were either proven, or at least not proven to be false. Time and time again, athletic talent has trumped even highly credible accusations of rape.
Meanwhile, the consequences of being an athlete’s victim are significantly less sunny. Lizzy Seeberg was a 19-year-old college freshman when she claimed to have been assaulted by a Notre Dame football player. Ten days later, after a series of threatening messages from a friend of the player, and coming to a realization that the player would not face justice, she killed herself. And, though her tragic case drew more attention than most, she’s hardly unique. A third of rape victims contemplate suicide, and 13% will actually attempt it. The suicide rate for the public at large? About 0.1%. And the suicide rate of high profile athletes accused of rape? Well, if there’s been one, I couldn’t find it. To even compare himself to Lizzy Seeberg or the thousands like her is only further testimony to how dreadful Jameis Winston’s character must be.
I don’t know if Jameis Winston is guilty, but the statistics say he almost certainly is. The threshold for the government to take your liberty is proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which legal scholars generally define as about 95% certainty. To take your property, the government (or a private citizen) need only show your guilt by a “preponderance of the evidence,” 50.1% certainty. If there is a 2-8% chance of the accusation against Winston being false, there’s a 92%-98% certainty that it’s true. Compare those odds to the burden of what must be proven to prevail in court if you will but, please don’t compare them to the actual results. Only three out of 100 rapists serve so much as one day in prison.
And that’s where it stands. There are very good odds that Winston is guilty, though we’ll never really know, given the endemic obstruction of justice in his investigation. There’s no chance he’ll go to jail now, but there was always less than a 10% chance that he would serve even a day in jail. Jameis Winston is projected as a first round draft pick in the NFL draft, where he’d be guaranteed millions of dollars. If he succeeds after that, there’s no reason to expect that he’d be any less marketable than Mike Tyson, Mark Sanchez, or Kobe Bryant.
Now, I ask you, is it fair for Jameis Winston to draw an equivalence between himself and a rape victim? And if so, why?
IronMikeGallego (Daniel Roberts) is a longtime boxing fan and occasional contributor to Deadspin and SportsOnEarth. He can be found on Twitter @ironmikegallego or at ironmikegallego@gmail.com.
A Star Player Accused, and a Flawed Rape Investigation
Tallahassee, Fla. — Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 2012, a freshman at Florida State University reported that she had been raped by a stranger somewhere off campus after a night of drinking at a popular Tallahassee bar called Potbelly’s.
As she gave her account to the police, several bruises began to appear, indicating recent trauma. Tests would later find semen on her underwear.
For nearly a year, the events of that evening remained a well-kept secret until the woman’s allegations burst into the open, roiling the university and threatening a prized asset: Jameis Winston, one of the marquee names of college football.
Three weeks after Mr. Winston was publicly identified as the suspect, the storm had passed. The local prosecutor announced that he lacked the evidence to charge Mr. Winston with rape. The quarterback would go on to win the Heisman Trophy and lead Florida State to the national championship.
In his announcement, the prosecutor, William N. Meggs, acknowledged a number of shortcomings in the police investigation. In fact, an examination by The New York Times has found that there was virtually no investigation at all, either by the police or the university.
The police did not follow the obvious leads that would have quickly identified the suspect as well as witnesses, one of whom videotaped part of the sexual encounter. After the accuser identified Mr. Winston as her assailant, the police did not even attempt to interview him for nearly two weeks and never obtained his DNA.
The detective handling the case waited two months to write his first report and then prematurely suspended his inquiry without informing the accuser. By the time the prosecutor got the case, important evidence had disappeared, including the video of the sexual act.
“They just missed all the basic fundamental stuff that you are supposed to do,” Mr. Meggs said in a recent interview. Even so, he cautioned, a better investigation might have yielded the same result.
The case has unfolded as colleges and universities across the country are facing rising criticism over how they deal with sexual assault, as well as questions about whether athletes sometimes receive preferential treatment. The Times’s examination — based on police and university records, as well as interviews with people close to the case, including lawyers and sexual assault experts — found that, in the Winston case, Florida State did little to determine what had happened.
University administrators, in apparent violation of federal law, did not promptly investigate either the rape accusation or the witness’s admission that he had videotaped part of the encounter.
Records show that Florida State’s athletic department knew about the rape accusation early on, in January 2013, when the assistant athletic director called the police to inquire about the case. Even so, the university did nothing about it, allowing Mr. Winston to play the full season without having to answer any questions. After the championship game, in January 2014, university officials asked Mr. Winston to discuss the case, but he declined on advice of his lawyer.
When The Times asked Mr. Winston for an interview, an Atlanta lawyer advising his family, David Cornwell, responded, “We don’t need an investigation, thorough or otherwise, to know that Jameis did not sexually assault this young lady.” Mr. Cornwell, who has represented major sports figures and the N.F.L., added, “Jameis has never sexually assaulted anybody.”
Mr. Winston has previously acknowledged having sex with his accuser but said it was consensual. His account has been supported by two friends from the football team who were with him that night, Chris Casher, who took the video, and Ronald Darby.
A month before the rape accusation became public, the university’s victim advocate learned that a second woman had sought counseling after a sexual encounter with Mr. Winston, according to the prosecutor’s office. The woman did not call it rape — she did not say “no.” But the encounter, not previously reported, “was of such a nature that she felt violated or felt that she needed to seek some type of counseling for her emotions about the experience,” according to Georgia Cappleman, the chief assistant state attorney, who said she had spoken with the advocate but not with the woman.
The victim advocate was concerned enough about the episode to have alerted Mr. Winston’s first accuser.
Ms. Cappleman said that based on what she was told, a crime had not been committed. Nonetheless, Ms. Cappleman said she found the encounter troubling, because it “sheds some light on the way Mr. Winston operates” and on what may be “a recurring problem rather than some type of misunderstanding that occurred in an isolated situation.”
Mr. Cornwell called her comments “out of bounds,” adding, “I’m not interested in a prosecutor expressing an opinion based on a personal moral compass.”
How Long It Took to Gather Key Evidence
Investigators showed little interest in finding out what happened. They delayed talking to witnesses, interviewing Mr. Winston and collecting his DNA.
2012
2013
Nine months pass
Dec. 7
Accuser tells police: A Florida State University student told police she was raped that morning after drinking at Potbelly’s, a popular local bar.
Jan. 10
34 days Identify Mr. Winston: Police failed to identify Mr. Winston, learning his identity only after the accuser recognized him on campus and told police.
Jan. 23
47 days Contact Mr. Winston: Tallahassee police investigators waited nearly two weeks before trying to contact Mr. Winston.
Feb. 11
66 days Close case: Scott Angulo, the lead investigator, filed his first report, closing the case without interviewing crucial witnesses or getting DNA or phone records from Mr. Winston.
Nov. 14
342 days Interview key witness: For the first time, investigators interviewed a football player who witnessed sex between Mr. Winston and the accuser.
Obtain DNA sample: Investigators obtained Mr. Winston’s DNA that matches DNA found on the accuser’s clothing.
Dec. 5
363 days No prosecution: The local prosecutor William N. Meggs decided the evidence was not sufficient to prosecute Mr. Winston.
The university, after initially speaking with The Times, recently stopped doing so. A university spokeswoman, Browning Brooks, said she could not discuss specific cases because of privacy laws but issued a statement, saying that the university’s “code of conduct process has worked well for the vast majority of sexual assault cases” and has “provided victims with the emotional and procedural help they need.”
On Feb. 13, before the university stopped granting interviews, Rachel Bukanc, an assistant dean who oversees student conduct issues, said she knew of no student who had secretly videotaped sex. After The Times questioned that response, the university began an inquiry and recently charged Mr. Casher with a student-code violation for taking the video. Mr. Darby has also been cited in connection with the episode.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of football to Florida State and its hometown. In Tallahassee, rooting for the Seminoles is a matter of identity and economy. The 2013 championship season generated millions of dollars for the athletic department and city businesses, and favorable publicity beyond measure.
Patricia A. Carroll, a lawyer for Mr. Winston’s accuser, said the police investigator who handled the case, Scott Angulo, told her that because Tallahassee was a big football town, her client would be “raked over the coals” if she pursued the case.
Officer Angulo has done private security work for the Seminole Boosters, a nonprofit organization, with nearly $150 million in assets, that is the primary financier of Florida State athletics, according to records and a lawyer for the boosters. It also paid roughly a quarter of the $602,000 salary of the university president, Eric Barron, who was recently named president of Penn State.
The Tallahassee police declined to make Officer Angulo available for an interview, but his report states that he suspended the investigation because the accuser was uncooperative, which she denies.
The department issued a statement, saying that police reports in the Winston case “document that our department took the case seriously, processed evidence and conducted a thorough investigation based on information available when the case was reported.”
The case came at a time of turmoil for the Tallahassee police. In March 2013, a grand jury investigating police misconduct in an unrelated matter called police supervision “careless, uncaring, cavalier and incompetent.” The grand jury said supervisory deficiencies were so deeply ingrained that the city police, which has more than 350 sworn officers, should merge with the sheriff’s department, with the sheriff assuming overall control.
Late last year, Mr. Winston’s accuser and another Florida State student filed internal-affairs complaints, charging that Tallahassee police officers had investigated them, rather than the accused, and then prematurely dropped their cases.
“My attorney’s repeated calls to Tallahassee Police Department prove that I had not dropped the case,” Mr. Winston’s accuser wrote in her Dec. 19 complaint.
Two days earlier, the other student had written, “Why did the detective insist my case was closed and refused to answer calls and emails?” She added, “I am SO ANGRY!”
Both complaints were quickly dismissed.
Purgatory at Potbelly’s
Potbelly’s is a classic campus bar: big and boisterous, a place to drink, dance and mingle inside or at a tiki bar outside. A Thursday tradition, Purgatory at Potbelly’s, allows students to drink all the alcohol they want for $10 from 9 p.m. to midnight.
On Purgatory Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, Mr. Winston’s accuser, who at 19 could not legally buy alcohol, shared at least five mixed drinks with friends, according to police records. At one point, a man she did not know grabbed her arm, pulled her close and introduced himself as Chris, a football player. He said he was looking for his roommate, and when he requested her phone number, she gave it to him. She did not recall seeing him again that night.
The woman did not appear drunk, her friends said. But after a stranger gave her a drink, she recounted, her memory became hazy and fragmented. Soon, she found herself in a taxi with three unfamiliar men, all of whom turned out to be Florida State football players.
Jameis Winston was one of them. A redshirt freshman quarterback, 6 feet 4 inches and 235 pounds, Mr. Winston had been a prize recruit, well-known in football circles but not yet a widely recognizable name.
Because of the young, combustible clientele, Potbelly’s protects itself by operating more than 30 security cameras. If something untoward happens, the cameras are there to record it. They were in position to fill in the blanks from that evening, recording how the woman came to leave without her friends, her general behavior and the face of the man who gave her the final drink.
Taxi records also contained a footprint for investigators to follow: The woman recalled that someone in the car swiped a Florida State student identification card to get a discounted fare.
After partially blacking out, the woman said, she found herself in an apartment with a man on top of her, sexually assaulting her. She said she tried unsuccessfully to push him away, but he pinned down her arms. Meanwhile, according to her account, another man walked in and told her assailant to stop. He did not. Instead, she said, he carried her into the bathroom, locked the door and continued his assault.
Afterward, the woman told investigators, the man put her on a bed, dressed her and drove her on a scooter to an intersection near her dormitory and dropped her off.
Upon returning to her room, she posted a plea online for someone to call her. Two friends did. One was Jenna Weisberg, another Florida State student.
“I was awake and I called her and she was hysterically crying,” Ms. Weisberg said. “‘I think I just got raped,’” she recalled her saying. Ms. Weisberg drove immediately to the friend’s dorm.
Ms. Weisberg said her friend was reluctant to call the police because she did not “want anybody to be mad at her.” Eventually she relented, and at 3:22 a.m., Ms. Weisberg called 911.
A campus police officer responded, listened to the accuser’s account and then drove her to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. Because the woman believed the encounter occurred off campus, a city police officer, Clayton Fallis, interviewed her next.
Soon, Officer Angulo, an investigator with the special victims unit who joined the force in 2002, arrived at the hospital and took over the case. Again the woman began to recount what had happened, until the investigator, seeing she was tired, told her to go home and come to Police Headquarters later in the day.
She returned, accompanied by a friend, Monique Kessler, who was with her at Potbelly’s, and they recounted what they had seen and heard, including the encounter with Chris, the football player.
Officer Angulo had three solid leads to identify the suspect: the name Chris, the bar’s security cameras and the cab where a student identification card had been used.
What the investigator did next — or did not do — would later confound prosecutors and muddied the outcome of the case.
An Inquiry Begins, and Ends
Officer Angulo’s investigation was halting at best. His first report, filed more than two months after the encounter, includes no mention of trying to find Chris or looking at Potbelly’s videotapes.
Not only would Chris have been easy to find, but the police already had an investigative file that identified Chris Casher as Mr. Winston’s roommate. A little more than a week before the sexual encounter, the Tallahassee police had interviewed both men in connection with 13 damaged windows at their off-campus apartment complex, all caused by football players engaging in a long-running BB gun battle. The Florida State athletic department promised that the $4,000 in damages would be paid, and no charges were filed.
Officer Angulo did contact the cab company, without success. “The GPS units on the vehicles are not precise enough to eliminate enough cabs to focus the search,” he wrote.
He then asked the cab company to email all drivers who had worked that night, with “the demographics of the passengers and the pickup location.” No one responded, and there is no indication that he attempted to interview drivers.
Officer Angulo, who had told his superiors that he “had no real leads,” suddenly got a big one on Jan. 10, a little more than a month after the encounter. As a new semester was beginning, the accuser called to say she had identified the suspect — Jameis Winston — after seeing him in class and hearing his name called out.
Again, Officer Angulo hesitated. Nearly two weeks passed before his backup investigator contacted Mr. Winston — by telephone, records show.
“Winston stated he had baseball practice but would call back later to set a time,” Officer Angulo wrote. The police did get a response — from Mr. Winston’s lawyer, Timothy Jansen, who said his client would not be speaking to anyone.
With Mr. Winston identified, the next logical step would have been to quickly obtain his DNA. Officer Angulo decided against it. Ms. Carroll, the accuser’s lawyer, said the officer told her that testing Mr. Winston’s DNA might generate publicity. “I specifically asked and he refused,” Ms. Carroll said.
Officer Angulo concluded his six-page report by saying: “This case is being suspended at this time due to a lack of cooperation from the victim. If the victim decides to press charges, the case will be pursued.”
Two parts of that statement struck Ms. Carroll as strange. The officer, she said, never informed her client that he had suspended his investigation, and her client never said she would not cooperate. She said that while her client was indeed concerned about the prospect of pressing her case against a star-in-waiting, “at no time did we call him and tell him we don’t want you to do an investigation.” Her client, she added, simply wanted more information before deciding what to do.
Such reluctance should not keep the police from investigating, according to Ms. Cappleman of the prosecutor’s office.
“It makes the most sense to me, if somebody comes in to report a violent crime, investigate it, and we’ll talk about what to do with it after we’ve collected the evidence and have the most thorough picture,” she said. If an accuser later decides she does not want a trial, Ms. Cappleman added, her office might offer a suspect a better plea deal.
Officer Angulo’s investigation apparently stirred no concern within his department. His superior officer signed off on his work, records show.
In the weeks that followed, not knowing the investigation had been suspended, Ms. Carroll called the police periodically to see if lab tests had come back. Sometimes, her calls were returned, she said, but not always.
A Deputy’s Daughter
Early last October, a 19-year-old Florida State student was studying on a Saturday night while her roommates went drinking. She said they returned drunk, and a roommate’s former boyfriend, also a student, raped her in her room.
The student reported the encounter to the Tallahassee police. The episode had nothing to do with Mr. Winston, but it, too, raised questions about how the city police deal with rape accusations. The police response was so inappropriate, according to the father, that later on, in a complaint filed with the police, he compared it to the Winston inquiry, which had recently drawn criticism in the news media.
The father, a part-time deputy sheriff in another county, said he was away on business when he called his daughter and found her crying and confused. With prodding, she disclosed that she had just spoken to the police about “a situation,” but would say no more. An officer had told her that “it might be better not to inform me,” her father said.
Alarmed, he asked his wife to call. She did, and their daughter said she had been raped. The mother and a family friend, also a law enforcement officer, immediately drove more than two hours to Tallahassee. They found the daughter with what appeared to be choke marks on her neck.
According to the father, a Tallahassee police officer named Christopher Pate characterized the young woman as confused and having had a hard time communicating. “Why was I not given an advocate to speak with?” his daughter said in a complaint she filed later with the police. “I was raped and was stressed and scared.”
In a report, Officer Pate said he had offered the woman “many different avenues of help (victim advocate, female officer etc.). She refused them all.”
Rape crisis counselors, while not speaking specifically about this case, say traumatized victims often experience memory problems. “Victims themselves feel like they are losing their minds when they can’t remember, when they remember fragments that don’t seem to connect up,” said Meg Baldwin, executive director of the Tallahassee-based Refuge House, a haven for victims of domestic violence and rape. “The interpretation so often is, well, she’s lying, she’s in any event an unreliable witness who won’t be believed.”
Officer Pate’s blunt interviewing style did not help, the student said. “The first thing he asked me,” she recounted, “was if I was sure this was rape or if I just didn’t want a baby or wanted the morning after pill.” He also made comments, she said, “like, ‘Are you sure you want to file a report? It will be very awkward, especially for a female.’”
In his complaint to the police, the father wrote that Officer Pate had suggested that an investigation “would be futile, as ‘this kind of stuff happens all the time here.’” The family also said the police had focused more on the accuser than on the accused.
Unlike in the Winston case, the police did ask prosecutors to review the evidence, but they declined to bring charges because statements from the roommates conflicted with the accuser’s account. After receiving the family’s request for an internal affairs investigation, the police found no basis for punishment.
“While no policy violation was identified, Officer Pate was counseled on the public perception of officer actions and speech during investigations,” according to police documents. The department declined to make the officer available for an interview.
The woman, an A student, dropped out of school, left the city and underwent therapy for extreme depression, according to the family. “Going to F.S.U. had been a longtime dream for her,” her mother said.
The News Breaks
It was Wednesday of homecoming week last year and Florida State, ranked No. 2 in the nation with a 9-0 record, was preparing to play Syracuse. Mr. Winston, described by teammates as both playful and intense, had already thrown 26 touchdown passes, amassing 2,661 passing yards with a completion percentage just south of 70 percent. After his first game, an ESPN draft expert had identified him as a legitimate No. 1 choice in the 2015 N.F.L. draft.
If Florida State was going to ascend to the national championship game on Jan. 6, it would do so on the arm and poise of Jameis Winston. The Heisman voting was but a month away, and his crowning as America’s best college football player appeared all but certain.
Then, suddenly, that glorious vision began to go out of focus.
On Nov. 13, the Tallahassee police, responding to a public-records request from The Tampa Bay Times, released documents on the sexual assault case, setting off a frenzied scramble in the news media and prosecutor’s office to learn what had happened.
As the news broke, and before investigators could talk to them, Mr. Winston’s lawyer had the two witnesses, Mr. Casher and Mr. Darby, submit affidavits attesting to their recollection of that now-distant night. They gave similar accounts: A blond woman who was not intoxicated willingly left the bar with the three football players, they said, and joined Mr. Winston in his room. Because the door was broken and would not close, they looked in and saw the woman giving the quarterback oral sex.
At one point, Mr. Casher said, he entered the room, but the woman told him to leave, got up to turn off the light and then tried to close the door. At no time, both men said, did she appear to be an unwilling participant. (The men did not respond to phone messages, conveyed through university officials, seeking comment.)
Mr. Meggs immediately directed his staff to reinvestigate the case.
In the recent interview, Mr. Meggs said he was surprised that the police had not quickly found Mr. Casher. “How long does it take to identify a freshman football player — about 10, 15, 16 seconds?” he asked, adding, “Anybody that looked at this case would say you get a report at 2 in the morning, by noon you could have had the defendant identified and talked to.”
Why Officer Angulo had not asked to see the Potbelly’s security video is unknown. A Times review of sexual assault complaints handled by the campus police last year found that in one case, officers asked for the Potbelly’s video when they were trying to identify a suspected assailant who had been seen at the bar.
As for not finding the taxi driver, “I am convinced that we would have identified the cabdriver that night and had an interview with him,” Mr. Meggs said. “Don’t know what we would have learned, but we would have learned the truth. I am also convinced that had it been done properly, we would have had the video from Potbelly’s.”
By the time the prosecutor asked for that video, the tape had long since been recycled.
Unlike the police, prosecutors said they interviewed every cabdriver they could find who had worked that night, but they turned up no new information. Mr. Meggs said that while his investigators probably spoke to the driver they were seeking, “at 11 months later, maybe he didn’t remember, maybe he didn’t want to remember.”
Mr. Meggs said he was shocked that the police investigator’s first attempt to contact Mr. Winston was by telephone. “He says, ‘I have baseball practice, I’ll get with you later,’” Mr. Meggs said. That call allowed Mr. Winston to hire a lawyer who told him not to talk.
“It’s insane to call a suspect on the phone,” Mr. Meggs said. “First off, you don’t know who you are talking to.” He said he would have gone straight to the baseball field. “If you walked up to Jameis Winston in the middle of baseball practice and said, ‘Come here, son, I need to talk to you,’ he would have said, ‘Yes, sir.’”
Mr. Meggs added: “He’s not in custody, you don’t have to read him his rights. He might have said, ‘I didn’t have sex that night.’”
Only after the prosecutor took over the case did the authorities obtain Mr. Winston’s DNA. It was a match to DNA found on the accuser’s clothing.
Belatedly, Officer Angulo and his backup were asked to conduct a crucial interview — to question Mr. Casher about the events of Dec. 7, 2012.
Mr. Casher made a startling admission: he had secretly videotaped part of the sexual encounter through the partly opened bedroom door, and deleted the video from his phone a couple of days later. Had the police found him quickly, they might have obtained that video.
Mr. Casher had never mentioned the video in the affidavit he submitted with the help of Mr. Winston’s lawyer. Even so, officers did not ask why he had omitted that important fact, why he had deleted the video or whether he had shared it with anyone. And though Mr. Casher said he had a new phone, the officers did not ask what he did with the old one.
Neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office subpoenaed the phone records of Mr. Casher, Mr. Darby or Mr. Winston — even though they investigated all electronic communications to and from the accuser around the time of the sexual encounter.
The failure to seek similar electronic communications from the three football players surprised one former assistant state attorney, who prosecuted a Florida State football player on a rape charge a decade ago. “Why that was done, I don’t really know the answer to that,” said the former prosecutor, Adam Ruiz. “To me, that’s a no-brainer.”
Mr. Ruiz said his children, aged 7 to 21, all had iPhones, and even for something as mundane as rain: “You’re texting 30 people about it. I can’t imagine there would not have been something coming off that cellphone after the incident.”
Three weeks after it began, with evidence lost and memories faded, the state attorney’s investigation was over.
“I have personal concerns about what happened in that room that night,” Ms. Cappleman said, “but that’s completely separate from whether I’m able to prove a crime occurred.”
The University’s Role
The news that Mr. Winston had been accused of rape moved through campus like an electric charge. On social media, the discussion quickly lost any semblance of civility, prompting one female student to send an email expressing her anger to Mary Coburn, vice president for student affairs.
“All day every day I am bombarded with messages of hatred for the alleged victim,” the woman wrote. “I am sad and ashamed to be part of a student body that is quick to support a man who is accused of sexual assault, simply because he is a good football player, and even quicker to condemn the alleged victim of the crime as a liar.”
Ms. Coburn replied: “I agree with you and have been thinking about how we address the ugliness that has been circulating.” She promised to gather a group of students in January to discuss the problem.
The athletic department had known early on that Mr. Winston had been accused of a serious crime. According to an internal Tallahassee police email on Jan. 23, 2013, one officer wrote that Officer Angulo’s backup on the case “received a call from the Athletic Directors Assistant inquiring about the case.”
This knowledge should have set off an inquiry by the university. According to federal rules, any athletic department official who learns of possible sexual misconduct is required to pass it on to school administrators. Florida State declined to respond when asked if top officials, including the university president, had been informed of the encounter.
“Why did the school not even attempt to investigate the matter until after the football season?” said John Clune, another lawyer for the accuser.
His client filed a complaint with the civil rights office of the federal Department of Education, and the agency recently agreed to examine whether Florida State properly responds to sexual violence complaints. The inquiry was first reported by USA Today.
It was not just the Winston case that was causing concern on campus. In January, the mother of a student who said she had been sexually battered at a fraternity the previous April contacted the campus police asking why the university “doesn’t do more to protect women from rape,” records show. The police response was to inform the mother of a self-defense class for students.
That did not satisfy the mother, who told an officer, “The university should take a harder stand on the men who are identified as having committed rapes.” According to the campus police, the student had said she did not want officers to investigate the case.
Determining the extent of the problem is difficult, because so many students are reluctant to report sexual assaults. President Obama, in announcing the creation of a task force earlier this year to protect students from sexual assault, cited surveys showing that one in five women is a victim of “attempted or completed sexual violence” while in college.
“I’d like to see a higher reporting rate so that we can address the problem,” said Ms. Cappleman of the state attorney’s office. “A lot of these cases go unreported, so having a higher reporting rate will lead to a higher success rate of prosecution and hopefully a deterring effect.”
If cases are reported, the university is obligated to investigate, regardless of what the police do. According to the federal Education Department’s civil rights office, “a school that knows, or reasonably should know” about sexual harassment, including rape, “must promptly investigate to determine what occurred and then take appropriate steps to resolve the situation.”
Universities must also inform the federal government of reported sexual assaults on their property or in the immediate vicinity.
Florida State has not yet reported its 2013 sexual assault numbers, but in the three previous years it reported four, five and five. Those numbers place Florida State in the lower half nationwide of similar-size public universities, according to federal data analyzed by The Times. The number of reported rapes can be affected by the percentage of students who live off campus.
83
80
Reported forcible
sexual assaults
2010 to 2012
Reporting Sexual Assaults
60
Florida State University reported few forcible sexual assaults compared to similarly sized public universities.
40
20
14
2
California State
University-Fullerton
Florida State
University
University of
California-Berkeley
Note: Includes four-year public universities with total 2012 enrollments between 30,000 and 60,000 students.
Source: Department of Education
Ms. Baldwin, the Refuge House director, said accusers report that the university’s internal complaint system tends to bury their experience rather than address it responsibly. “When I compare F.S.U. with other universities within the last five years that have done a great deal to address this issue, I’m not seeing that level of energy here,” said Ms. Baldwin, a former Florida State law professor.
In its statement, the university said that, in complying with federal rules, “The need to investigate possible harassment must be balanced against the rights of and consent from the complainant.”
A decade before the Winston case, the inspector general found that Florida State had violated its policy when the athletic department failed to inform the campus police of a rape accusation against one of its standout football players. Mr. Ruiz, the former prosecutor who handled the case for the state attorney’s office, recalled that the coach at the time, the revered Bobby Bowden, attempted to convince him that a crime had not occurred. A jury eventually acquitted the player.
“I learned quickly what football meant in the South,” said Mr. Ruiz, who grew up in New York State. “Clearly, it meant a lot. And with respect to this case I learned that keeping players on the field was a priority.”
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College stats
Baseball
Winston at Russ Chandler Stadium, 2014
Winston chose Florida State in part because he was allowed to play for the Florida State Seminoles baseball team in addition to football. He played as an outfielder and a pitcher as a freshman in 2013. He batted .235 with a .723 on-base plus slugging in 119 at-bats and had a 3.00 earned run average in 27 innings pitched.[8] Prior to the 2014 season, Winston was named a preseason All-American by Baseball America as a 3rd team utility player.[17]
College stats
Controversies
Sexual assault allegation
On November 14, 2013, the State Attorney of the Second Judicial Circuit announced they were opening an investigation into a sexual assault allegation involving Winston that was originally filed with the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) on December 7, 2012.[18] The complaint was originally investigated by the police and classified as open/inactive in February 2013 with no charges being filed.[19][20] The police report, containing the victim’s original statement, has been posted by the Tallahassee Police Department.[21] Tallahassee police stated that the complaint was made inactive “when the victim in the case broke off contact with TPD, and her attorney indicated she did not want to move forward at that time” and then re-examined after media requests for information started coming in early November.[22] On December 5, 2013, State Attorney Willie Meggs announced the completion of the investigation and that no charges would be filed against anyone in this case, citing “major issues” with the woman’s testimony. Meggs stated that “As prosecutors, we only bring charges for cases where the evidence will result in a likely conviction at trial. In this case, the evidence does not show that.”[23] Allegations of improper police conduct have been made by both parties, with the victim claiming to have been pressured into dropping her claim and Winston’s attorney alleging inappropriate leaks to the media. Florida State’s policy is that athletes charged with a felony cannot play until their case is resolved, but Winston continued to play throughout the investigation because he was never charged.[24]
On April 16, 2014, The New York Times reported irregularities in the rape investigation involving Winston. Though a medical examination of the victim revealed bruised knees and semen on the woman’s body – and the victim would identify Winston by name as her attacker a month later, Tallahassee police reportedly never obtained a DNA sample from Winston, never interviewed him, nor attempted to obtain video of the encounter taken by Seminoles teammate Chris Casher. The investigation was conducted by Officer Scott Angulo, who, the Times?’? article notes, did private security work for the Seminole Boosters, the primary financier of Florida State athletics.[25]
The official FSU hearing, presided over by retired Florida Supreme Court justice Major Harding, on December 21, 2014 cleared Winston of violating the student conduct code in the sexual assault allegation.[26]
Gun complaint
In 2012, Winston and another FSU player were held by campus police for allegedly bringing a BB gun on campus and firing at squirrels. Officers handcuffed Winston but he was later released when it was noticed he was not on campus and the gun was just a BB gun. No charges were filed against Winston in this incident.[27]
Shoplifting incidents
In July 2013, a Burger King employee called police in July to complain that Winston was stealing soda. According to the police report, Winston came in to the restaurant with three men, but did not order any food. An employee, who recognized him, first saw him using ketchup cups to take some soda. He asked for a water cup after she told him to stop, but he said he would use it for soda and filled it repeatedly with soda over her objections, the report said.[28] On April 29, 2014, Winston was issued an adult civil citation for shoplifting crab legs from a Tallahassee Publix store.[29] Winston was ordered to undergo 20 hours of community service and was suspended from any college baseball activity until he completed his community service.
Vulgar comments
On September 17, 2014, Winston was suspended for the first half of Florida State’s upcoming game against Clemson. The Guardian reported that, “several students tweeted,” that Winston shouted, “fuck her right in the pussy,” an Internet meme,[30] while standing atop a table in Florida State University’s Student Union.[31] Two days later, university president Garnett S. Stokes and athletic director Stan Wilcox, citing results of an “ongoing investigation”, announced that Winston would be suspended for the whole game.[32]