OFFICIAL 2023 NFL Arrests/Lawsuits/Legal Stuff
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MadGoat
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I agree, but it's pretty funny that some of these, like Williams, came down to players betting on allowed contests, but because they were on NFL premises, it's a six game suspension. It's not quite as black and white as gambling on NFL games.
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Lol wtf? This is on par with a classic OldNotDead post.
you’re crazy!
Honestly, I wonder how the hell the league finds out they are gambling? Maybe an agreement that allowed the partnership is for them to give feedback on how has digital gambling accounts?
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No it's not gonna be perfect as they try to get the right ruleset down and learn to enforce it. But the worst possible result would be to be too easy on the violations and end up with a league that has players changing the way they play to ensure payoffs.
MadGoat
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I think anything NFL related is pretty easy. "Don't do it."
It's the non-NFL stuff that's going to be a problem. The messaging is "It's OK, but not if you are inside our building, but if you go out in the parking lot, it's OK again."
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Cjcinec
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He admitted having sex with the drunk minor before she was taken to the room and raped by his teammates. So you are half right at best. As far as horrible takes go you post clueless and incorrect information to serve your agenda. Sorry if you can’t handle the complete truth. Ariaza exercised very poor judgment for someone who dreamed about playing in the NFL. Couldn’t pass up sex with a drunk minor. Must be a not very smart guy but he did go to SDSU and they are known for their parties not their education. I’m guessing you might be an alumni also. Sorry about your education choices.
Cjcinec
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Exactly!
Details Emerge On 'Punt God' Matt Araiza's Chilling Phone Call With Alleged Rape Victim
To say that the details about the gang-raping allegations lodged against Buffalo Bills rookie punter Matt Araiza are disturbing would be a...
clutchpoints.com
dang
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Jesus if any of this factual he should be working the Zipper at the county fair. I’m going to try to find out more as this is more disturbing than I realized. On the other side if it’s all lies then that’s one horrible lie about him.
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He made a mistake having sex with her but to ruin the guy's life for that mistake is overkill and the kind of thing people who have never had casual sex or very much life experience might believe is appropriate. I don't think that is appropriate. In fact I think he's been dragged through the mud damn well so far from this. They dropped the charges because his sex with her was consensual, he did not rape her. What he's guilty of is not carding his sex partner. Which is quite common and again not worth pouring gas on the dude and lighting him on fire for.
Also to say his phone call was "chilling" insinuates he threatened her in the title for clicks. When in reality the phone call was him telling her she might have an STD and she had the police with her while she was trying to get him to admit they had sex. That's not a "chilling" phone call. A chilling phone call would be him threatening her. Misleading at best.
Also to say his phone call was "chilling" insinuates he threatened her in the title for clicks. When in reality the phone call was him telling her she might have an STD and she had the police with her while she was trying to get him to admit they had sex. That's not a "chilling" phone call. A chilling phone call would be him threatening her. Misleading at best.
dang
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Merlin you are a well respected member of this forum. So with all due respect, it’s 2023. Not 1973 or 1983. The times have changed for better or worse. So again if everything stated was a lie then that needs to come out and anyone involved needs their reputation ruined comparably. If ANY of what was stated is true then Azaria ignorantly fucked himself and severely damaged an underaged 17 year old girl. I’m the father of an 18 year old girl so I do have some personal interest in finding the truth prevail. Either way.
Elmgrovegnome
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Wasn’t it already established that he was not involved in the gang rape, if you can call it that? He had left the party by then. The girl was telling everybody in the frat that she was 18. She openly said she was there to get laid. Videos of the ‘rape’ showed no evidence of the girl saying no or struggling.
It sounds like the girl sobered up and regretted her actions and doesn’t want to take any responsibility. She may even have found out later who Araiza is and may be looking to cash out.
I’ve mentioned a player whose career was ruined by a girl claiming he raped her. Years later it came out that it wasn’t true. So, getting too offended by these reports is kind of jumping the gun imo.
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I have daughters. Raised them to think for themselves and all are excellent young people. But if one of them had gone off on a tangent and attended college parties underage and done what that girl did I still would not want his life to be ruined because he failed to card a sex partner.
The guy should be punished iaw the law for sex with an underage girl. He did it. But people talking like his livelihood should be over and he never plays ball again which is BS. What I'm standing up for here is severity of crime. Fucking a girl who is underage but willing and who put herself there to begin with is not a life ending or career ending mistake. It's just not. I don't care what fucking decade it is dude. So yes I appreciate your reply and I expect 99% of people on this board to disagree with me and that's fine. Just throwing my take out there fwiw.
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Dated August 2022
I know this might be hard to comprehend but law enforcement works with the District Attorney to see if there is any criminal charges that can be assessed. You know their jobs? How about you stop being lazy and look up what the DA found for themselves in their investigation? Smfh
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You do know there is laws in most states if a 18 year old has sex with a 17 year old it’s not a felony and sometimes not a crime at at all right? Some states have several years difference there as well.
Nothing illegal happened and this girl is confirmed from multiple people she went with to the party about lying, looking to hookup have sex, her friends she went confirmed she didn’t appear to be intoxicated or drink beforehand, so multiple points she had proven to lie in multiple areas contrary to the story.
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View: https://twitter.com/claytravis/status/1659295972315262981?s=46&t=KwDPB8g3_dITEcMZZq9_mQ
Prosecutors: Former Bills punter Matt Araiza wasn't present during alleged gang rape
A recently released 200-plus-page transcript details exculpatory evidence in the case against Matt Araiza.
sports.yahoo.com
Prosecutors: Former Bills punter Matt Araiza wasn't present during alleged gang rape
A recently released 200-plus-page transcript details exculpatory evidence in the case vs. Matt Araiza
Dan Wetzel
Columnist
Mon, May 8, 2023·9 min read
The Buffalo Bills drafted Matt Araiza in the sixth round before cutting him in the preseason after a civil lawsuit was filed against him, accusing him of rape. He will not face criminal charges over the allegations. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)More
Content warning: This story contains depictions of alleged sexual assault.
Last August, just days after earning the starting job as the Buffalo Bills' punter, rookie Matt Araiza was the subject of a civil lawsuit alleging that he and two San Diego State football teammates participated in a gang rape of an intoxicated 17-year-old girl.
While little was known publicly, San Diego Police had spent nearly 10 months on the case before forwarding it to the district attorney without a recommendation for prosecution. The Bills said they also knew about the incident, investigated it and decided to employ Araiza anyway.
The graphic allegations in the civil lawsuit, however, created a public frenzy. It included a claim that during an Oct. 15, 2021, party at a home near the SDSU campus, Araiza led the girl into a bedroom where “at least three other men” waited.
“Once inside, Araiza threw [the girl] onto the bed face first,” the lawsuit read. “[The girl] went in and in and out of consciousness while” suffering through “the horrific gang rape.” It lasted an hour and a half, the lawsuit read, before she “stumbled out of the room bloody and crying” in part because “multiple piercings had ripped through the skin during the attack.”
Within days, the Bills cut Araiza, who, due to his record-breaking NCAA career and an 82-yard punt in a preseason game, had earned the nickname “Punt God.”
“We just think it’s the best move for everyone to move on from Matt and let him take care of this situation,” Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane said.
Araiza remains out of football despite prosecutors announcing on Dec. 7, 2022, that after conducting their own 124-day investigation, they wouldn’t press any criminal charges in the case. However, few details, let alone their reasoning or additional exculpatory evidence, were included in the initial statement.
A fuller picture of what police and prosecutors found, however, is now available via a 200-plus-page transcript obtained by Yahoo Sports of a 100-minute meeting in which a deputy district attorney offered a detailed explanation to the girl and her attorneys.
Perhaps most notably, the district attorney’s office concluded that Araiza couldn’t have led the girl into the alleged gang rape because he “left” the home at about 12:30 a.m., an hour prior to when evidence suggested the alleged gang rape would have occurred.
“He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained. Later, Amador stated of the timeline of events, “All I know is that at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.”
Additionally, prosecutors told the girl that video recordings of the incident in the bedroom made it impossible to determine — let alone prosecute anyone — whether there was a gang rape at all that night, rather than consensual sex with the other men.
“In looking at the videos on the sex tape, I absolutely cannot prove any forceable sexual assault based upon what happened,” Amador said.
The accuser's attorney, Dan Gilleon, could not be reached for comment to Yahoo Sports. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Gilleon said his client won't be "bullied" into dropping the civil lawsuit. "It's not going to happen. This case is going to trial, and we’ll force Araiza to talk," he said.
Gilleon told CBS8 in San Diego that the witness on whom prosecutors based their opinion that Araiza was not present during the alleged gang rape was a “buddy.”
The dual investigations by police and prosecutors included more than 35 witness interviews (including some of the girl’s friends who came to the party with her that night), the results of a Sexual Assault Team exam conducted the following day and 10 search warrants that produced four terabytes of information, including numerous short videos of some of the alleged encounters.
They led authorities to come to vastly different conclusions than what was alleged in the civil lawsuit. Prosecutors explain it to the girl and her representatives in a sensitive and detailed manner during the meeting, allowing for questions and pushback from both the girl and her attorney.
Araiza, whose life has been upended since he was named in the civil lawsuit, hopes this is enough for NFL teams to take a second look at him, despite the civil suit still being active, according to his attorney. He and the two other players named in the suit vehemently deny any gang rape or knowledge that the girl was below California’s age of consent (18) or whether she was intoxicated.
Any sexual contact, Ariaza has said, was consensual. And now here, essentially, are local prosecutors making his case for him via a recording that not every jurisdiction provides.
For Araiza, the most powerful exculpatory evidence came from a number of short videos of the encounter between the girl and two or three men in the bedroom. Timestamps show it occurred about 1:30 a.m. Citing a witness and other information, prosecutors concluded Araiza had “left the party at 12:30 [a.m.],” Amador explained to the plaintiff.
The lawsuit additionally alleged that Araiza “knew or should have known” that the girl was only 17 years old and that she was “heavily intoxicated.”
The girl and some other high school friends became aware that a party was being thrown at the house just a few blocks from the SDSU campus. The group let themselves in through a back gate. Witness interviews from the party, including two of the girl’s friends with whom she arrived, said she didn’t appear to be drunk at the time. Other witnesses said the girl was telling people she was 18.
“A witness who was in the house gave a statement saying that at — at least one point in the party, that you made a statement telling people at the party you were 18,” Amador explained to the accuser. “Another witness at the party, a different one, says that they specifically heard you say you were 18 …”
There was additional evidence cited by Amador from a recording from a party the night before at a different residence in which the girl says on camera that she is 18.
The civil lawsuit alleged that soon after the girl’s arrival at the party, she was separated from her friends, and Araiza led her “over to the side yard of the house, where he told her to perform” sex against her consent.
Araiza, however, has always maintained that he never led her into a private area of the backyard, that she walked back there while he was urinating.
Witness testimony, again including the girl’s friends, played a role in prosecutors declining to press charges.
“The witnesses say … that shortly after you arrived at the party, you left and came back shortly thereafter,” Amador said. “And you told [a friend], ‘I just had sex.’ ... You didn’t appear unhappy. You appeared to be having fun and that the encounter on the side of the house with Matt, suspect Araiza, was consensual."
Amador explained to the girl that additional witness testimony alleged that at this period of time, “you were approaching men at the party saying, ‘I want you to [expletive] me, and if you don’t [expletive] me, you’re a [expletive].”
While the civil lawsuit claimed that right after the Araiza encounter in the side yard, the football player led her into the bedroom in the house, the timeline established by authorities was much different. Prosecutors said that “shortly after” being with Araiza, witnesses said the girl again left her group and came back to report that she had had sex with a different man. Again, prosecutors explained, witnesses suggested it was consensual.
“You had returned and then came back and said you had sex with a guy, this would have been the second person that would have been in the progression of the evening,” Amador said. “Again, you’re described as being OK, not scared or distraught. Seemed happy, seemed consensual.
“Again, you’re not intoxicated at this point that anybody would know your intoxication level to the point that they would not be able to tell that you weren't able to give consent,” Amador said.
The timeline prosecutors pieced together suggested that this encounter occurred at 12:55 a.m., about a half-hour after Araiza had left the house. This incident occurred on a living room sofa with one of the football players who was also named in the civil lawsuit. Parts of this encounter were filmed on a cell phone. Prosecutors said the footage from the cell phone did not suggest any forced behavior.
“There’s nothing in the videos that sound like you’re saying ‘stop’ or ‘this hurts’ or anything like that,” Ted Mansour, an investigator for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, said at the meeting.
The prosecutors offered to show the girl and her lawyers all of the videos they culled from cell phones. The girl watched one during the meeting before deciding that was enough. None of the lawyers in the civil case, or Araiza himself, has seen the videos because they involve sex with an underage girl. Araiza’s legal team is trying to acquire the videos through a court order as a way to defend him against the allegations.
Gilleon wrote in a court filing that Araiza not appearing in any of the brief videos does not prove he wasn’t there, just that he wasn’t filmed.
Prosecutors also said that videos from the bedroom show that the girl's piercings were not ripped at the time and she was not bleeding from any wounds. Amador said her behavior in the videos made prosecuting anyone for rape impossible.
“I don’t see any elements of force being used in the sexual encounter,” Amador said.
The civil lawsuit is continuing and requires a lower threshold of proof than criminal charges.
Mackeyser
Supernovas are where gold forms; the only place.
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California "Statutory Rape" Law - Penal Code § 261.5 PC
Legal analysis of Penal Code § 261.5 PC, the California law that defines unlawful sex with a minor under the age of 18 (statutory rape).
www.shouselaw.com
(The law firm is a defense firm and I use the article solely for the clarifications surrounding the applicable law)
Penal Code § 261.5 PC makes it a crime to have sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of 18 who is not your spouse. It is considered statutory rapeeven if the minor willingly participates, as the law deems minors to be legally incapable of consenting to have sex.
The legal age of consent under California state law is 18 years of age. Unlike some states, California does not have a Romeo and Juliet law or close-in-age exception. 1 2
In this article, we will quote the entire language of the code section, and then provide a legal analysis below. The code section reads as follows:
261.5. (a) Unlawful sexual intercourse is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person who is not the spouse of the perpetrator, if the person is a minor. For the purposes of this section, a “minor” is a person under the age of 18 years and an “adult” is a person who is at least 18 years of age.
(b) Any person who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is not more than three years older or three years younger than the perpetrator, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
(c) Any person who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is more than three years younger than the perpetrator is guilty of either a misdemeanor or a felony, and shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170.
(d) Any person 21 years of age or older who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is under 16 years of age is guilty of either a misdemeanor or a felony, and shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for two, three, or four years.
(e) (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an adult who engages in an act of sexual intercourse with a minor in violation of this section may be liable for civil penalties in the following amounts:
(A) An adult who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor less than two years younger than the adult is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed two thousand dollars ($2,000).
(B) An adult who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor at least two years younger than the adult is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000).
(C) An adult who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor at least three years younger than the adult is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
(D) An adult over the age of 21 years who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under 16 years of age is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000).
(2) The district attorney may bring actions to recover civil penalties pursuant to this subdivision. From the amounts collected for each case, an amount equal to the costs of pursuing the action shall be deposited with the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered, and the remainder shall be deposited in the Underage Pregnancy Prevention Fund, which is hereby created in the State Treasury. Amounts deposited in the Underage Pregnancy Prevention Fund may be used only for the purpose of preventing underage pregnancy upon appropriation by the Legislature.
(3) In addition to any punishment imposed under this section, the judge may assess a fine not to exceed seventy dollars ($70) against any person who violates this section with the proceeds of this fine to be used in accordance with Section 1463.23. The court shall, however, take into consideration the defendant’s ability to pay, and no defendant shall be denied probation because of his or her inability to pay the fine permitted under this subdivision.
So, the civil penalties are relatively minor at less than $10k in Araiza’s case and he’ll lose at least that much in his civil case. However in CA, this law is a “wobbler” so can thus be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony depending upon the circumstances.
Araiza, being over 21 and the victim being under 18 (and thus legally cannot consent under any circumstances) with a greater than three year age gap, it’s likely he’d be charged with a felony. Moreover, due to the nature of the crime, by statute, he’d be forced to register as a sex offender.
How this all plays out is likely that because of the seemingly false statements by the victim regarding the gang rape, Araiza won’t be charged with the crime he confessed to which is Statutory Rape which even if he’s solely given probation, still would come with that sex offender label.
Are we to reward Araiza because in the course of him committing a felony statutory rape, he was falsely accused of a more vicious gang rape?
Several things:
1) he admitted to the statutory rape
2) the only reason he’s not on a sex offender list now is because the DA is won’t prosecute him after the false charge
3) I’m sick, tired, and done with folks who put feelings over fact and law. No one can consent under 18 in CA. I don’t care about all the teen crotch some were wearing out back in the day. It. Ain’t. That. Way. Now.
4) How often do folks say when drugs are involved that “hey, it’s a privilege to play in the NFL. No one’s entitled to play in the NFL. It’s a private business and can set its own rules. If you want to play in the NFL, follow the rules”… Well?
5) Does anyone expect him to stay on a roster if he makes one after being convicted in his civil trial (that’s a slam dunk because he’s already confessed)?
I don’t hate Araiza. That said, he’s also not innocent.
The punter we got otoh is a beast and I can’t wait to see that guy boom it!
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