SHU Lacrosse Rape? Three Sacred Heart Players Charged With Sexual Assault

STEPHANIE REITZ 11/24/09 04:54 PM ET Associated Press

React

share this story

Get Sports Alerts

Submit this story

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Three lacrosse players for a Catholic university in New England have been charged with conspiring to sexually assault a female student in a dorm room.

A lawyer for one of the men said any accusations that a sexual assault occurred in the Sacred Heart University dorm were a gross exaggeration of alcohol-fueled hijinks.

Wayne Keeney said his client, 19-year-old Timothy Sanders of Ashburn, Va., was having consensual sex with an 18-year-old woman when two 18-year-old teammates, Nicholas Travers of Smithtown, N.Y., and Zachari Triner of Marshfield, Mass., sneaked in as a prank.

Neither Travers nor Triner had sexual contact with the woman, Keeney said. He said that alcohol was involved and that the woman didn't know the two men had entered the room.

All three men were charged Sunday with conspiracy to commit first-degree sexual assault, according to a Connecticut court Web site. Sanders also is charged with unlawful restraint. Police and prosecutors didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

"The police report itself is so confusing," Keeney said. "The whole thing just doesn't ring true."

Attorneys for Travers and Triner declined to comment Tuesday. Lacrosse coach Tom Mariano didn't return a message.

Sacred Heart University released a statement saying that privacy laws prohibit commenting on specific students but that school policy calls for automatic suspensions when such accusations are made.

Keeney said all three have been suspended from school and the lacrosse team.

"I can appreciate that this young woman was put in an embarrassing set of circumstances through some sophomoric, college-boy antics, but there's no indication from what I can see or discern so far that there was any sexual assault there," Keeney said.

The team opens its 2010 season Feb. 12 against Massachusetts.

___

Associated Press writers David Collins and Susan Haigh in Hartford contributed to this report.

FOLLOW HUFFPOST SPORTS

Facebook:

30k

Twitter:

Get Alerts

CONTRIBUTE

TO THIS STORY

Comments
229
Pending Comments
0
View FAQ

Comments are closed for this entry

View All

Favorites

Recency |

Popularity

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next › Last » (6 total)

ghee99

855 Fans

05:55 AM on 11/26/2009

the dirty little secret in all of this discussion of rape, is that way, way, way many more men are raped than women,

and in most cases, the authorities refuse to even look into it

also, men being raped is the subject of humor,
even on prime time and network tv,

of course, joking about a woman being raped is not permitted, and rightly so.

its just because the epidemic of men being raped is happening in our prison system,
that we choose to ignore it.

i am all against catching all rapists,
but to say we as a society care about rape, yet we allow, and joke about the constant raping of men that is taking place on an institutional scale, is hypocritical at best,
and a major crime against humanity to boot.

so please, unless you are doing something to stop prison rape, and include men in your statistics, dont tell me you care, or know anything about rape.

you just care about women who are being raped (which we all should),
but thats just the smaller percentage of all people being raped.

we should care about ALL victims of rape,
and at this point in time, men are the group that is getting raped the most,
and getting almost all of the repeat rape cases as well...
so until you include men,
you are purposefully choosing to ignore most of the victims of rape.

Permalink | Share it

lakeharriet

1 Fans

03:07 PM on 11/26/2009

You deserve kudos for acknowledging that men don't just rape women and children. Sometimes they rape other men. My guess is that they normally assault an adult male victim in pairs or groups because his physical strength may be comparable to theirs.

03:57 AM on 11/27/2009

well, you got one point of my post,
that its not just women and children that get raped

but missed what i would consider the main point

that WAY MORE MEN THAN EITHER WOMEN OR CHILDREN ARE THE VICTIMS OF RAPE

also, that the smallest amount of resources are put into stopping, catching and prosecuting those that rape men.

by far, the greatest victims of rape are men

and by far, the smallest amount of resources (almost nothing) is put into doing anything to stop or lessen it.

even on the public relations side of things,
no one cares,
and almost everyone, even on network TV, feels free to joke about it

There are More Comments on this Thread. Click Here To See them All

JStading

"Shall NOT be infringed" means what it says.

1114 Fans

08:44 PM on 11/25/2009

"school policy calls for automatic suspensions when such accusations are made."

There needs to be a nationwide rejection of these practices. They announce people's guilt before any charges have been filed or convictions have been secured. The possibility of abuse is catastrophic. We saw through the Duke lacrosse ordeal that these programs essentially give nefarious actors an open door to extortion and empower them with a heckler's veto over someone's entire future.

The only reasonable alternative if these policies are to be retained is to make false reporting an offense which results in mandatory expulsion.

01:40 AM on 11/26/2009

So you want to punish a woman for making a report.

How would you like it if you reported to the police that someone stole your wallet and they threw you in jail because you couldn't prove it?

11:25 AM on 11/26/2009

I want to punish people for making false reports. It's such a good idea that every state already has a law on the books that punishes people for doing just that. Enforce the law.

I didn't say punish people when they could not prove a sexual assault, I said that when it is apparent that the report was made in bad faith and was known to be false, toss the person in prison.

Granfalloon

6 Fans

05:23 PM on 11/25/2009

When I was in college, I started dating a girl from my dorm. One night she said something like "Remember the first night we made out? We were both drunk and I thought you were going to rape me." For the life of me, I couldn't remember the incident. Several months later, I was talking to a friend of mine. I told him that this girl and I were no longer dating. He said, oh, I can tell you now -- she was the first girl I ever made out with in college. Well we started comparing stories and it turns out HE was the one who "almost raped" her. He looked a little like me. Add in some booze and voila -- faulty memory. I'm not saying that happened here, but...

jomada

9 Fans

05:20 PM on 11/25/2009

Duke Lacross case? It's so tiring of hearing these 'one-case-flukes' that are meant to stereotype women. Talk of rape - right away Duke comes up. Talk of politics - right away Margaret Thatcher comes up.

If the situation were reversed and women spoke of one-case-flukes/examples of men - gee, in the least, it'd be pointed out how illogical we were. Talk of domestic homicide- remember the OJ case. Talk of male politicians - remember Hitler (and all the others). And so on and so on.....

Violence, degradation, humiliation, assault, etc. agains women is rampant in this country.

It's about time we drop the defenses on the male team -- sorry if these "ruin a reputation" or god forbid "ruin a career" (because, ya know, this never occurs to victims...). Drop the offensive position and take the offensive - - tackle this problem. I'm sure you have mothers, sisters, aunts, girlfriends, etc. -- every one of us has been affected by violence or hassassment in one shape or another - some of us, more so than others.

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN NOW

Counterglow

Werner Heisenberg may have been right.

3082 Fans

02:20 AM on 11/27/2009

And if, in fact, it's proven that there was no violence against this particular woman, what then? The lacrosse players are already paying a price for something that may not have happened. And the fact that they are lacrosse players is certain to draw attention to the other case. Alleging anti-female bias against those who notice this coincidence is both irresponsible and unrealistic.

MoeB

1039 Fans

02:54 PM on 11/25/2009

These guys are being accused of sexual ASSAULT, not rape. People should understand that they are not necessarily the same thing. She could've agreed to have sex w/the one guy, but the moment others showed up, and she wanted him to stop and he didn't, it's assault.

Sadly, many would be shocked to know this occurs QUITE often. If I had a dollar for everytime it happened at my school (which was a private catholic college), I'd be a hundred-aire. Guys would hide in closets, under the bed, or most popular, outside the window, whispering all sorts of things that would make their parents ashamed to even know them.

09:53 PM on 11/25/2009

Only partially right. In many states (e.g. New Jersey), there is no "rape" law, only a sexual assault charge. This is largely attributable to the fact that at common law, the state had to prove that a defendant had (1) sexual intercourse, (2) with a WOMAN (not his wife), (3) using or threatening physical force, (4) without her consent.

What are the problems with the common law rape elements? First, a spouse could not rape his wife. Second, only men could be rapists due to the way "sexual intercourse" was defined.

This is not an old definition by any means. The Model Penal Code (a common set of criminal laws which are widely adopted in the United States) retains the fact that only men can be convicted of rape. (See MPC section 213.1(1)).

Sexual assault is able to be committed by either males or females, does not require force/threat of force, and does not have spousal immunity.

HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR

PAposter

Radical Progressive

1302 Fans

09:15 AM on 11/25/2009

Huh...I don't get it!

noudidnt

382 Fans

08:45 AM on 11/25/2009

I'm glad we're reserving judgement. However, when we here a story about three football players allegedly committing rape, I hope we will extend them the same courtesy.

Pamzy

3 Fans

09:23 AM on 11/25/2009

On that note, I wonder why the lacrosse players PHOTOs are not plastered all over HufPo? If ruining the reputation of the football players was okay before why isn't ruing the lives of the lacrosse players alright now?

01:43 AM on 11/26/2009

Are you using "we" in the royal sense?

HUFFPOST SUPER USER

robjh1

We Have Met the Enemy and he is Us: Pogo

736 Fans

07:40 AM on 11/25/2009

Believe it or not this goes on quiet a bit amongst boys. One guy gets the girl to come over he starts having sex with her and before you know it two more boys join in (think Britney Spears and her new threesome video). Some think it is ok and a joke. The more society, Hollywood glamorize this behavior some say we are sexually repressed this type of behavior will constantly take place. We really need to talk openly about sex and what it is.

"and we are not saved..."

01:26 AM on 11/26/2009

Thank you for your honesty. The rest of these guys try to claim there is no such thing as ga ng ra pe, yet it happens all the time.

bulfinch

78 Fans

07:39 AM on 11/25/2009

Do lacrosse players all take steroids or something? Geez.

This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program

Garioch

290 Fans

07:15 AM on 11/25/2009

There is no way this can be true as it was only the other week that I was reading on here all of you telling us in the comments on another story that it was only the 'animals' from the 'jungle' of the inner cities who carried out this sort of act.
They weren't on scholarships were they? If not then the majority of commenter’s must of course be correct and it’s the woman’s fault.

drdubski

39 Fans

03:02 PM on 11/27/2009

you must have confused with freerepublic

Ken Freedom

Post-Modern Adventurer

177 Fans

06:48 AM on 11/25/2009

Sorry, I learned my lesson with the Duke case, and other cases where these sort of accusations were made. I'm going to leave it to a jury to decide this one.

01:30 AM on 11/26/2009

Your memory is faulty. There was no jury in the Duke case. The perps were rich and bought their way out of the whole thing. They were white and the vic tim was African American. From the days of American slavery guys like them have felt free to ra pe African American women. They knew they could get away with it when they did it.

iatrogenic

05:11 PM on 11/26/2009

There was not enough evidence in the Duke case to proceed to trial. The accuser also floated a couple of different stories, and the prosecutor eventually realized the allegations were baseless.

You seem to be under the impression that women are incapable of wrongdoing, and that if they cry "rape," the guy must automatically be guilty. Please have a look at the following report (written by a woman):

http://abuse.suite101.com/article.cfm/false_allegations

aftershock

92 Fans

03:15 PM on 11/27/2009

Wow, so the "accuser" recanting her story and the fact that the ONLY semen found on the "accuser" was from another man that she apparently slept with after the "rape" occurred just never happened right?

pterack5

42 Fans

05:58 AM on 11/25/2009

Oh them boy's. . .

sandyra

2 Fans

02:47 AM on 11/25/2009

No matter what we think we know about the situation, and we all have our opinions regarding this incident, we don't know what really happened and we may never know. All we can ask is that the truth come to light and the guilty one(s) (be it the 3 men or the woman who may have lied) be punished accordingly.
Having one's freedom taken from a person and forced to endure something sexual against one's will is a crime. It's not "boys being boys" and it's not a joke. It's a tragedy and people who make light of rape/sexual abuse or whatever you want to call it, are people sadly lacking in compassion and empathy. Should one of their loved ones be victimized in this way one would hope that this will truly give them a change of heart.
IF this woman was assaulted then she has my deepest sympathy. IF she is lying then I hope she will be prosecuted for perjury. IF these men assaulted this woman then I hope they will be prosecuted for their crime and IF they are innocent I hope they can regain their good names and prosper.
In this, the twenty first century, we should have by now evolved into better, higher minded people. I hope this incident will be a wake up call to the ones who find this sort of "sport" fun. Fun you them, maybe, but definitely not "fun" for the victim.

02:43 PM on 11/25/2009

Why would a woman lie about ra pe? The article doesn't say who reported it. It could have been a neighbor or somebody else. After what happened after the lacrosse event at Duke University, it's hard to imagine the vic tim herself voluntarily making a report.

06:14 PM on 11/25/2009

It only takes a few women crying "wolf!" aka lying about being attacked for whatever reason to make it that more difficult for women who have been victimized to be believed. It's a sad statement to make but so many people act without thinking of the repercussions that will follow their actions.