Football players not guilty of rape
STAR TRIBUNE (Mpls.-St. Paul) Newspaper of the Twin Cities
Date: 12/19/01
Margaret Zack; Staff Writer
Two University of Minnesota football players were found not guilty Tuesday of charges that they raped a 19-year-old woman last summer in a campus dormitory. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated about an hour and a half before reaching its verdict in Hennepin County District Court. Attorneys for Mackenzy Toussaint, 20, and Steven M. Watson, 19, argued that any sexual activity between the players and the woman, who also was a student, was consensual. After the verdict, Earl Gray, Toussaint's attorney, and Joe Friedberg, Watson's attorney, said the jury reached the only verdict it could. "It was clear the victim wasn't telling the truth," Friedberg said. The charges stemmed from events on July 6 in Roy Wilkins Hall.
The woman, who is now 20, didn't go to university police until July 20. She gave them a statement on July 24. Each defendant was charged with two counts of first-degree and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Jurors heard testimony over portions of four days. Toussaint, a defensive back from Miami, and Watson, a defensive end from Defiance, Mo., were suspended from the football team but remain students at the university. Neither testified at the trial and both declined to comment after the verdict. University officials were not available for comment Tuesday about the verdict but said earlier that acquittals would not necessarily mean that the two would be reinstated to the team. The woman testified last week that she considered the men to be her friends. She went to the dormitory where Toussaint was staying after both had turned in papers for a writing class.
She said Toussaint had forced her to have sex with him, when a 5-year-old boy who was visiting at the dormitory opened the door. They went into a closet to complete the act, she testified. A short time later, Watson and she were about to have sex when university football player Thomas Tapeh came into the bedroom. Karel Moersfelder, an assistant county attorney, told the jury in her closing argument Tuesday that the woman told Tapeh, "I didn't do anything." She was in shock because of what had been done to her by people she trusted and considered friends, Moersfelder said. Friedberg told the jury in his closing argument that the woman was a "jersey chaser," someone who has sex with athletes. "She got what she wanted, sex with athletes," he said. Friedberg said she was concerned that her reputation in the university community would be ruined because Tapeh, who she knew from high school, found her in a compromising situation. And Friedberg said her parents, who didn't have the foggiest idea what she was doing when she left home for the university (she lived at home) and didn't want her to date black men, would find out about her separate life. Moersfelder told the jury that the woman, who gave police a report on July 24, was trying to cope and felt the incident was somewhat her fault. "She said no, she struggled. Her friendship and trust were broken," Moersfelder said. County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said the "case was like many other acquaintance cases where it is reduced to the issue of consent. In the end, the jurors didn't believe beyond a reasonable doubt they were guilty." A recent report said about 80 percent of sexual assault cases charged in Hennepin County involve acquaintances, Klobuchar said.