NYT: TPD mismanaged Winston rape case and FSU failed to investigate

Submitted by Leaders And Best on

New York Times on the Jameis Winston rape investigation or lack thereof. Winston may have actually sexually assaulted a second girl as well after the university already knew about the first alleged assault for months. The Tallahassee Police Department is complete and utter joke.

Also, it looks like the NYT investigation led to FSU's suspension of the 2 players who filmed the alleged assault.

And my favorite part: the president of FSU during this mess was just hired to be next president of Penn State. You can't make this stuff up.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/16/sports/errors-in-inquiry-on-rape-allegations-against-fsu-jamies-winston.html?_r=0

Ball Hawk

April 16th, 2014 at 10:25 AM ^

Makes me wonder why they filmed the assault. You would have to be some kind of sick person to film an assault. Maybe she consented and then had regretted it the next day. I just couldn't imagine how someone could film a terrible act. Whatever the case is someone is in deep shit.

GoBLUinTX

April 16th, 2014 at 10:33 AM ^

Winston won his Heisman, as ESPN and especially Mike Greenberg dreamed and FSU won the MNC, as ESPN all but demanded...all is good in the world.  

FSU refuses to care about rape by football players.  The TPD doesn't care to investigate, the NCAA can't be bothered, and ESPN has their unblemished MNC to talk about.  Apparently everyone is happy.

dahblue

April 16th, 2014 at 11:00 AM ^

I don't know that Michigan acted appropriately with Gibbons, but the fact patterns are nothing alike:

Gibbons:

-Alleged rape; immediate police investigation; victim declines to press charges; police drop the case; victim declines to press for University disciplinary action; UofM code rewritten; UofM takes action against Gibbons w/o victim pressing those charges.

Winston:

-Allged rape; no action taken by police (well, they actually did take action but only to harm any potential for prosecution); victim urges action; police still do nothing; prosecutor unable to take action; University takes no action.

The only thing is common is an allegation of rape committed by a football player.

B1G_Fan

April 16th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^

 It's still a pattern in college sports. When the NCAA punished PSU, it wasn't directly for the Sandusky case. They were punished for the for the culture that had allowed these atrocities to happen, be covered up and when brought to light ultimately shrugged off by PSU faithful.

 For whatever the reason, there have been 5 major universities recently who have botched or ignored sexual assault and or rape investigations involving athletes from a major sports team. If 5 have made major news outlets, it makes you wonder how many are still being covered up elsewhere.

bronxblue

April 16th, 2014 at 12:06 PM ^

And if we had the internet and social media 20 years ago, it would be just as bad.  As sad as it is to say, the only reason we have seen an uptick in recent years is because more and more sources are getting a voice and unearthing them for public consumption.  

B1G_Fan

April 17th, 2014 at 12:59 PM ^

 The one thing that is simular is that if you look at both cases, you're not happy with how they where handled overall. I'm not going to pretend i know what happend in the Gibbons situation and honestly I wasn't singling out U of M and FSU. The fact of the matter is FSU, U of M, MSU, Penn State and Colorado have all had high profile rape/ sexual assault investigations involving athletes mishandled. If you put that with the growing number of NFL players being charged and convicted of multiple rape/ sexual assault charges then you see  it's a huge problem.

GoBLUinTX

April 16th, 2014 at 2:40 PM ^

 the story breaking toward the end of the season and the HT voting, "Greenie" spent four hours every day lamenting how it would be a shame if the voters had to vote for Winston with the unproven allegation being held over his head.  Greenie about pissed his pants with glee when the county prosecutor said there was no basis to seek an indictment. 

Greenie didn't give a damn that the victimized young lady was still claiming Winston had assaulted her.  On the contrary, he was overhelmed with delight that the HT voters would now have clear consciences when voting for Winston and the way was paved for FSU to play for the MNC with their newly exonerated and righteous knight.

GoBLUinTX

April 16th, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^

The two other players doing the taping gave statements which tended to exonerate Winston of wrong doing.  They said that they asked to join in the fun and claimed she said no.  The implication being that no meant no and that there was consent from her to be serviced by Winston.  Moreover, the evidence of the taping was "lost", and it was the claim from the two that had taped the incident which led to their own dimissal.

BlueToTheCore

April 16th, 2014 at 2:03 PM ^

I agree with you on this, but I think that if the video was consensual, why delete it? (My reading of various articles doesn't make it clear if the video was deleted or the phone was destroyed or "lost")  I understand that a lawyer would say "No matter what, people will freak out about a video of young black men having sex with a white girl and you may not get a fair trial."  I get that.

What bothered me is that even if erased, the video most likely could have been recovered using forensic analysis software.  As people should know - deleting a file isn't necessarily erasing it.

I have a little-used minor in Computer Forensics to go along with one of my Bachelors degrees (in CS) and although I am no expert, I would be shocked if they couldn't recover the video before the 1's and 0's were overwritten.

But then again, even here, delaying tactics help insure that doesn't happen.

Blue Since B.C.

April 16th, 2014 at 10:37 AM ^

From 2010 to 2012, FSU reported 14 sexual assaults vs. 83 at Cal Berkeley over that same time period.  I'm calling BS, Tallahassee.

Also, a surprising number at Berkeley, wow.  I would have guessed that there would be less than 83 people having sex total.  Their equivalent of the Stacks must get a lot of action.

Ball Hawk

April 16th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^

For the record, im not making any assumptions. I just couldn't imagine anyone to have that kind of mind set to do something like that. Terrible either way and im glad that I dont have a daughter.

dahblue

April 16th, 2014 at 10:49 AM ^

Wow.  I never paid much attention to anything other than the basics of "FSU QB accused of rape but not charged".  This article (or, rather, the facts behind it) are amazingly terrible.  You have a victim who wanted to press charges, police who refused to investigate and a prosecutor with no option other than to walk away (given the police's willfull refusal to act).

This could just be one or two bad cops (as the prosecutor seems as frustrated as anyone), but FSU has still taken no action.  If Winston isn't booted from FSU (let alone allowed to play another game), it will be a tragedy.  

Princetonwolverine

April 16th, 2014 at 11:08 AM ^

The article claims the chief police investigator also works for the Seminole Boosters organization with over $150 million in assets. It also says the boosters pay the majority of the FSU President's salary. 

No potential conflicts there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LSAClassOf2000

April 16th, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^

"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."

To me, one of the more egregious things about this. I mean, for any case, two months is too long, but when we're talking about something like what Winston is accused of doing, it floors me that someone would let it sit like that. From the sound of it, the investigation was then finally taken up on a report that was delayed two months. It definitely sounds like an all-around botching.

sadeto

April 16th, 2014 at 11:13 AM ^

I was surprised to learn that the Seminoles Booster Club, with "$150 million in assets," pays 1/4 of the university president's salary. If anyone still objects to the use of the term "football factory" to describe such a school, please explain the rationale for such an arrangement. 

The NYT investigation is disturbing, showing FSU is not only a football factory, but, unfortunately, a sexual assault factory as well. 

MGlobules

April 16th, 2014 at 11:42 AM ^

100 million plus in cuts during the recession has raised itself from the 112th ranked public university to a top-50 public (US News and World Report) school over the last decade. Great film school (second to UCLA), great music school, school of dance, etc. Many, many kids who are the first in their families to go to college. And an incredibly nice town (I say this as someone raised in A2) close to all the nicest unspoiled best of Florida and the Gulf.

The school lured the national mag lab from MIT a while back, and had recently had its status raised to a par with UF as flagship state institution, assuring much more desperately needed funding in future. Barron, president while this happen, formerly headed NOAA, and replaced a former football player and good old boy coming in, bringing far more respect to the school. (My wife, at the height of the recession, received a memo asking her to remove the light bulb from the ceiling in her office to save electricity. . . the same week that Bobby Bowden received an unasked-for million dollar bonus.)

This kills. And the outpouring against the girl and for Winston in the run-up was god-awful, though the article makes it look much, much worse. 

Prince Lover

April 16th, 2014 at 11:26 AM ^

And I can't believe some of the stuff in that article. I can't believe a woman who wants to continue an investigation would get swept under the rug.
I hate this sue everybody culture this country has become, but if my daughter was victimized like this on both fronts, I would be screaming and suing and harassing anybody and everybody in that police department. Jobs have to be lost! To serve and protect my ass. Serve and protect who? This is just an abomination of the justice system and our culture in general. Rather sickening.
And the comparisons to the Gibbons case really makes me sad too. Because anyone who thinks they are similar in scope just doesn't get it either. I don't care if it took 4 years to expel Gibbons, justice wasn't swift, but his name is ruined as it should be if he harmed a woman which seems to be the case. But the police did not act any where near as incompetent as the TPD. (At least that I'm aware of.)
People want to say how can someone tape an assault, so it must not have been an assault. Wow, just WOW!
Reading shit like that makes me so upset because it's shit like this that the shows me how assaults can happen and not be taken seriously. The fact that the thought can be, it must just be regret by the woman because another guy was there. I'm disgusted.
I'm very sorry for this rant and I'm sorry for taking off the cuff comments so seriously, I just become defensive because as I stated, I do have a 4 yr old daughter. But I do think it shows the blasé approach this society still has when it comes to assault crimes.
And lastly, may I say thank you to Monocle Smile. His 2 posts are reassuring that there are rational people out there.

Edit:after hitting save, I see a lot more posts that see the situation as it should be, and not just Monocle.

JamieH

April 16th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^

You DO know that in the McDonalds coffee incident, McDonalds was heating their coffee to ridiculously dangerous levels and the woman in question suffered severe disfiguring burns that put her in the hospital for 8 days and required multiple surguries to repair right? 

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

 

People love to rail against "frivolous" lawsuits, of which there are certainly too many.  What they don't love to do is actually find out about actual cases and whether they have real merit or not.  There was no reason for McDonalds to be serving people molten coffee that could put them in the hospltal if they spilled it on themselves.  It was NOT entirely their fault, as the customer did spill the drink on her own.  However they should not have been serving 180 degree beverages to people. 

umumum

April 16th, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^

but grossly overstated.

1.  As has been pointed out, the first examples above are factually and legally quite different from the sensationalized versions commonly making their way on the internets.

2.  We are not really a more litigious society statistically over the past 20 years or so.

3.  There will always be silly/frivlous lawsuits (as there have always been)--the fact is, they don't win beyond anecdotally.   Suing ain't getting.

4.  And my main point remains the same--when an individual deems oneself wronged, the legal system suddenly doesn't look so bad.

Now back to killing the lawyers.

 

MGoChippewa

April 16th, 2014 at 11:17 AM ^

Brian's tag of "People who are in charge of things are just in charge of things".  Unfortunately in this case, it's much more important than just a game.  It's a shame that this girl, or these girls, may never get the justice they deserve.  At the very least, they were robbed of the right to a competent investigation.  

RoxyMtnHiM

April 16th, 2014 at 11:32 AM ^

My favorite part is how the boosters club is paying a quarter of the university prez's salary. Everything else just naturally flows out of that state of affairs.