The lawyer for Florida QB Treon Harris said Wednesday that Harris has not been in the room of the woman accusing him of sexual assault, the woman initiated the interaction and Harris is not guilty of a crime.
Harris, who played in the second half of Florida's win over Tennessee, was suspended on Monday. He has not been arrested or charged in the matter and on Wednesday, the police report was released.
According to Florida Today, the accuser is a Florida athlete and that, per "multiple sources," a second male mentioned in the statement as having been with the woman Sunday night is also a Florida football player.
Because of a state statute allowing the school to do so in an ongoing investigation, the police report was heavily redacted. Per the Orlando Sentinel "the time and location of the alleged incident, Harris' height, weight and birth date and the name of the responding officer are the only information provided by the school."
In the statement, attorney Huntley Johnson said that Harris and the woman knew each other socially before Sunday night and the incident took place at Harris' apartment. The statement also said that based upon an appeal of Florida's decision to suspend Harris, he's allowed to take the online classes he is enrolled in. As part of his suspension he cannot be on campus.
We want to dispel the idea and rumors floating around that our client forced his way into the alleged victim's apartment. Those rumors are patently false. Mr. Harris has never been inside the young lady's room. We understand that all of the evidence was gathered from our client's room, which is where the interaction between the two parties took place. We know that an individual has given testimony to law enforcement that he had sexual relations with the alleged victim less than an hour before the alleged sexual conduct with our client took place. In fact, testimony indicates that the young lady in question was the sexual aggressor in that interaction. Our investigation has produced no evidence whatsoever that the young lady in question was impaired. We have provided law enforcement with multiple witnesses that will indicate what the interaction was between the alleged victim and our client before they returned to our client's room: they were smiling and they were holding hands. They returned to the Springs Residential Complex in a car driven by another female student who was a friend of the alleged victim.
We have provided multiple text messages to the authorities investigating this incident. These texts were exchanged among the alleged victim, Mr. Harris, and the other gentleman mentioned above. When these text messages are released, they will show that the young woman making these allegations initiated the conduct with Mr. Harris while he was still in the locker room in Knoxville. Shortly after the team plane landed, texting continued between Mr. Harris and the alleged victim. We believe the evidence will show the alleged victim was in fact in the sexual aggressor with not one, but two young men early last Sunday morning.
The lawyer also said that he does not believe Harris will be arrested or prosecuted in the incident and that Harris has cooperated fully with the investigation. If he is ultimately not charged by authorities in the matter he could still face code of conduct charges from the university based off the findings of a Title IX investigation.
Misstatements in the media to date have painted a picture that is inconsistent with the evidence. That said, we have fully cooperated with this investigation. Mr. Harris agreed to a search of his dorm room. Mr. Harris agreed to a search of his phone. Mr. Harris gave a voluntary statement to law enforcement. We have turned over at least six (6) eyewitnesses to the events in questions to law enforcement. We have turned over the text messages to law enforcement. We have suggested to law enforcement multiple locations from which they should secure video surveillance. We have provided law enforcement with information gathered from the Internet that this young woman posted on Sunday, after the alleged misconduct, where she is smiling and happy. There is no indication of any physical or mental trauma.We have previously indicated that we do not believe that Mr. Harris will be arrested or prosecuted. That is because of our experience and the facts of this case. He is not guilty of a crime and he did not mistreat this young lady in any way that night.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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