A report by Colleen Shalby and Robert J. Lopez of the Los Angeles Times reveals that Buffalo Bills rookie punter Matt Araiza is one of three current and former San Diego State players named in a San Diego County Superior Court lawsuit. An unidentified woman claims that Araiza, Zavier Leonard and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko took turns having non-consensual sex with her as she went in and out of consciousness. The woman was a 17-year-old high-school senior at the time.
Kerry Armstrong, Araiza’s attorney, hadn’t reviewed the lawsuit, but said this in a statement to the Times after his investigator spoke with people who were at the party where the alleged incident happened.
“It’s a shakedown because he’s now with the Buffalo Bills,” Armstrong said. “There is no doubt in my mind that Matt Araiza ever raped that girl.”
Attorneys for Ewaliko and Leonard told the Times that they had not reviewed the lawsuit, and therefore could not comment. Jamahl Kersey, Leonard’s attorney, said that there is an ongoing criminal investigation, and that no conclusions about his client should be drawn.
The Bills have released a statement on the matter.
From the Bills: “We were recently made aware of a civil complaint involving Matt from October 2021.
Due to the serious nature of the complaint, we conducted a thorough examination of this matter. As this is an ongoing civil case, we will have no other comment at this point.”— Alaina Getzenberg (@agetzenberg) August 25, 2022
It is not known what the Bills’ “thorough examination” entailed.
More from the Times report:
At the request of police, [the woman] made pretext calls — recorded by detectives — with the men named in the lawsuit whom police “had determined were present in the room when the rape occurred.” Araiza, the complaint alleged, confirmed on a call in late October that they had sex and recommended she get tested for a sexually transmitted disease. Later in the conversation, she asked him, “And did we have actual sex?” Araiza allegedly changed his tone and replied, “This is Matt Araiza. I don’t remember anything that happened that night.”
San Diego police detectives guided the young woman during her pretext calls, a Times review of text messages shows. The woman’s attorney, Daniel Gilleon, said police have not provided recordings of those calls or his client’s police report. The results of the rape exam have also not been disclosed, he said.
In a previous Times investigation, it was revealed that the university elected to avoid telling the student population about the alleged incident, and waited more than seven months to begin its own investigation.
After the Times revealed this, San Diego State started putting information about the incident on its campus website.
Here is the timeline, per that website.
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Oct. 18, 2021: SDPD received a report of an off-campus sexual assault. SDSU was first notified of the incident and SDPD’s investigation on Oct. 19, 2021.
- Oct. 19, 2021: SDSU’s Title IX office began its assessment of actions it could take given the reported case. To date, no victims or witnesses have reported the incident to SDSU.
- Oct. 26, 2021: SDSU received the first of several anonymous submissions from individuals with third hand information about the alleged off-campus sexual assault. The university had agreed to comply with SDPD’s investigation, and shared the information with SDPD.
- Oct. 27, 2021: SDSU responded to the individuals sharing anonymous information, requesting that the individuals contact the Title IX Coordinator so that the Title IX Coordinator could learn more about the incident. All of the anonymous reporters declined the meeting request.
- Oct. 28, 2021: SDPD sent a formal letter to SDSU requesting that the university temporarily delay its administrative investigation to ensure that the criminal case was not compromised. The university has and continues to comply with SDPD.
- October through December 2021: Individuals shared anonymous information about the alleged sexual assault with SDSU, but were not able to provide first-hand, witness accounts regarding the incident. In follow-up communications to those individuals, SDSU asked each to share information with SDPD, and the university provided contact information for the SDPD sergeant handling the investigation.
- Nov. 12, 2021: SDSU sent a formal letter to SDPD indicating that it had shared all information the university was aware of about the reported incident and would continue to comply with the police investigation. In an effort to ensure any alleged victim was aware of their right to file a Title IX complaint, the university also provided SDPD with our Title IX policy and Title IX Complaint form and formally requested that they provide both to any alleged victim.
- Dec. 7, 2021: SDSU sent a second formal letter to SDPD requesting any alleged victim information, and also requested that the police agency share the university’s Title IX Coordinator’s contact information with any alleged victim.
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October 2021 to Present: SDSU continued to cooperate with SDPD and regularly confirmed that SDPD was continuing to actively investigate the incident and that there was a continuing need for SDSU to pause its investigation.
October 2021 to Present: The Title IX Coordinator, in consultation, continues to periodically assess information known to the university, to include SDPD’s request, to determine any additional or new actions the university may take. - January 2022 to Present: Periodic updates were shared between SDSU and SDPD during the ongoing criminal investigation, which continues.
- June 3, 2022: SDSU President Adela de la Torre shared a campus message providing information about the case, SDSU’s compliance with the case, campus resources and other details.
- June 6, 2022: To date, no victims or witnesses have reported the incident to SDSU’s Title IX office or the University Police Department. SDPD has not confirmed the name of the victim or any alleged to have been involved.
- June 13: 2022: SDPD shared an additional formal request with SDSU, asking the university to continue to hold off on an investigation and to continue to comply with SDPD’s ongoing criminal investigation. “SDSU’s compliance with our October 28, 2021 request to delay the Title IX administrative investigation has helped ensure the integrity of SDPD’s complex criminal investigation,” the letter reads.
- July 22, 2022: SDPD notified the university that it could now proceed with its own university process without compromising SDPD’s ongoing criminal investigation. The university has already begun its process, according to California State University systemwide policy. The university has been exploring potential policy violations and will be reviewing all known and confirmed information and evidence through the lens of SDSU and CSU policies. This process involves identifying any violations beyond the confines of Title IX, to include CSU policies related to discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct, violence. For more information about the university’s process, see the Interim CSU Policy Prohibiting Discrimination, Harassment, Sexual Misconduct, Sexual Exploitation, Dating Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Retaliation.
- August 1, 2022: SDSU President Adela de la Torre announced that SDSU had begun its own independent process after the university recived confirmation from SDPD’s that doing so would not comprmise SDPD’s criminal investigation.
- Ongoing: The university offers education, training, workshops, including mandatory training, for sexual assault education and prevention.
“In October 2021, San Diego Police Department (SDPD) requested that SDSU not take any action, including launching an investigation and conducting interviews, regarding the reported off campus sexual assault to avoid compromising its own criminal investigation,” the site says.
“As members of the media have now reported on the SDPD investigation, the university is providing information about its actions, its resources and its commitment to supporting a thorough and complete police investigation, which every victim deserves.”
From the Times:
The university launched a Title IX investigation last month after the city police department notified the school that doing so would not jeopardize the criminal inquiry. Title IX is the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex at federally funded educational institutions. Araiza and Ewaliko would not have to comply with the campus investigation since they are no longer at the school.
Araiza’s name first became prominent in reports that happened days after the incident.
“I hope this isn’t true for Matt’s sake,” one student said in an Oct. 26 report, acquired by the Times. “But if it’s true I hope he gets the repercussions he deserves and [the] girl gets justice.”
“99% of the football players are aware of the 5-person rape so the rest of the student-athletes are left wondering why nothing is being done,” another student said.
“To keep it silent for now over nine months — the same people that are alleged to have done this have been allowed to roam free, graduate, continue to play in their sports,” the father of the alleged victim told Shalby and Lopez in July. “It drives me bonkers.”
“Something like this sticks with you forever,” the woman said. “And all I can really do now is just hope that I can get some sort of justice somehow and feel like people are facing consequences for their actions because I feel like I’ve been facing the consequences for their actions.”
From the July Times report:
She arrived at the Halloween party dressed as a fairy. She had already been drinking with her friends, she said, when she met a San Diego State football player at the house just blocks from campus. The player gave her a drink and eventually led her inside the house to a bedroom where she said several of his teammates took turns sexually assaulting her, slamming her down on a bed and ripping out her piercings.
Covered in blood, she found her friends outside after what she believed to be more than an hour.
“I was just raped,” she told them.
The next day, with bruises across her neck and down her legs, she filed a report with San Diego police and underwent a rape exam at Rady Children’s Hospital. The arduous process lasted through the night as her body was swabbed and she was tested for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
The father of the alleged victim said that his daughter wants “to make sure that it doesn’t happen to somebody else. That those guys don’t go on to sign NFL contracts and make a lot of money, get a free pass, have it happen to somebody else. Because they got away with it once, they can get away with it twice.”
Araiza, who won the 2022 Ray Guy Award as the nation’s best punter, was selected by the Bills with the first pick in the sixth round of the 2022 draft.
