Rape Charges Dropped Against Jazz Players

[Leetonidas]

WTF? I never even knew about this...

Four Utah Jazz Players Cleared of Rape

http://nba.aolsportsblog.com/2007/01...eared-of-rape/

Posted Jan 5th 2007 6:45PM by Matt Watson
Filed under: Western, NBA Police Blotter, Jazz
Ronnie BrewerTalk about coming out of left field: True Hoop points to an article in the Portland Tribune about how the Multnomah County (Oregon) district attorney has released a memo indicating that they've decided against filing rape charges against Deron Williams, Dee Brown, Paul Millsap and Ronnie Brewer (pictured right) following an accusation from a stripper back in October.

Huh? How did I miss this? The mainstream media never passes up an opportunity to hype up an athlete making trouble story, yet somehow I don't recall hearing a single mention of his incident until now.

I just did a Google search and the only mention of "utah jazz" and "rape" brings up an old DeShawn Stevenson article from 2001. (Refresher: 20-year-old Stevenson had consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl ... or rather, as "consensual" as it gets given statutory rape laws. He served 103 hours of community service.)

But a recent rape case? It's news to me. According to the Tribune, what everyone agrees on is that the players took the woman, who was reportedly extremely intoxicated, back to a hotel room. Soon after the woman claims she was raped by two of them.

Which two? Therein lies the problem: she's not sure, and because she can't positively ID her attackers the district attorney's office has decided against pursuing the case. The players were interviewed separately by police and told consistent stories, claiming that none of them had sex with the woman that night. I'm not going to re-hash the timeline -- read the Tribune article for that -- but it's an unfortunate way for the case to be closed, doing little to clear the players' reputations if they're actually innocent.

Then again, can their reputations be tarnished if no one knows about the case? Only time will tell if this makes it's way to the mainstream news.

[Leetonidas]

Did no one know about this???

[Rynospursfan]

I knew about it, it was way back in preseason if I recall corectly. Of course I live in the Portland area so that is probably the only reason I knew anything about it. The police had very little evidence and were not releasing any details. In fact this is the first I had heard any names.

[tsb2000]

Stripper? In Utah? Where?

[RonMexico]

I'd never heard of this.