I wrote a post about this story last week. Now there's more information that was just released about the alleged sexual assault of a young, drunk woman by Ben Roethlisberger.
The 20-year-old college student who accused Ben Roethlisberger of assaulting her last month told Milledgeville, Ga., police the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback followed her into a nightclub bathroom, cornered her and had sex with her after she told him "no" more than once.
Hundreds of pages of police documents regarding the case were released Thursday, three days after prosecutors said no charges would be filed against Roethlisberger, who has denied the accusations.
In her statement, the accuser said Roethlisberger encouraged her and her friends to have numerous alcoholic drinks before she was escorted by one of Roethlisberger's bodyguards -- identified by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as Coraopolis, Pa., police officer Anthony Barravecchio -- into a hallway, where Roethlisberger later exposed himself to her.
"I told him it wasn't OK, no, we don't need to do this, and I proceeded to get up and try to leave," she said in her statement. "I went to the first door I saw, which happened to be a bathroom."
But Roethlisberger followed her in and shut the door, she said.
"I still said no, this is not OK, and he then had sex with me," she wrote. "He said it was OK. He then left without saying anything."
Two of the accuser's friends said they saw her being led into the hallway and also saw Roethlisberger follow. Ann Marie Lubatti said she told one of Roethlisberger's two bodyguards, "This isn't right. My friend is back there with Ben. She needs to come back right now."
Lubatti said the bodyguard -- identified by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as Ed Joyner, a Pennsylvania state trooper -- would not look her in the eye and said he didn't know what she was talking about.
I'm sorry, but I have to keep pushing this story because if not, another woman's rights gets thrown under the bus. If these statements are true then Big Ben should be in jail. The young woman refused to press charges because it's a very tough experience to go through.
The woman's lawyer, David Walbert, said in a letter to the US courts that his client was not recanting her accusation. But the letter also stated she did not want to press the issue because it would be "a very intrusive personal experience.
And according to the Georgia DA there isn't enough physical evidence to indict him.
On top of everything else that went on, the police officer on the scene who took Ben's statement resigned from the job because he acted like a petulant--fan adoring asshole instead of a policeman. And I do hold the police in high regard.
That is one tough gig even though we highlight when abuses occur:
Blash reportedly told an off-duty police officer who was a member of Roethlisberger's entourage that the victim was "drunk off her ass" and lied about the alleged assault.
"We have a problem," Blash reportedly said. "This drunken b****, drunk off her ass, is accusing Ben of rape. This pisses me off. Women can do this. It's bull**** but we've got to do this, we've got to do a report. This is BS. She's making s*** up."
TMZ, meanwhile, is reporting that Blash, an eight-year veteran of the department, posed for photos with Roethlisberger outside Capital City before the alleged attack took place.
In another article, her friend had this to say.
According to the documents, one of the woman’s sorority sisters told investigators that her friend "was dragged by a bodyguard to the back room in Capital (City, a local nightclub). She was extremely intoxicated and not aware of what was happening."
Nicole Biancofiore told police she asked the owner of the Capital City Club to "unlock the door but he told me that ‘Ben was not going to do anything to ruin his reputation for the Steelers.' " The accuser, who was wearing a sexually explicit T-shirt, then "came out of the back room and told [another friend] that he had sex with her without her consent," Biancotiore said.
I'll repeat what I said in an earlier post. Just because pretty young women like to hang out and party with famous people is not an open invite from that girl to have sex with her. He's a six foot five inch man and that's intimidating for anyone. It looks like he'll skate on this one because the DA doesn't have enough evidence to prosecute if all these statements are accurate, but the league and the Rooney's should suspend him immediately from the Steelers.
