So the crux of the story. After the season ends, FSU finally gets around to investigating the whole 'did Winston rape the girl' thing (because why do it during the season when they could potentially suspend players during a title run?) and they pull him into a meeting with officials and he immediately pleads the 5th and doesn't answer a single question.
So what does the admin do? They punish Chris Casher and Ronald Darby for 'conduct detrimental to the team', citing conduct of a sexual nature that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment for another person and acts that invade the privacy of another person, according to the report. Casher also faces an additional charge of recording of images without consent. - They both face expulsion.
In case you were wondering, Winston came out of it all clean.
Comments
I am shocked... Shocked I say!
basically he might have gotten a get out of jail free card and they blamed the two lesser players. Oh and if anyone wanted to know casher was a DE, so that opens a huge void for Nnadi to fill.
From the ESPN report, it sounds like Cashner was trying to help fill some holes. WTF. Excerpt below
Both Casher and Darby told police they witnessed the sex between Winston and the accuser. Casher told police that he attempted to join, but was told to leave by the accuser.
So in this scenario, Jameis Winston is Peter Warrick and Chris Casher and Ronald Darby are Laveranues Coles?
FSU changed their head coach, but it's still the same ol' FSU.
Just remember, this guy deserves to get paid as well.
Until I see convincing evidence that Winston did anything wrong (especially something as serious as rape), I'm going to go ahead and just assume he's innocent.
And of course he's not going to say anything to FSU officials. Any lawyer in the country would advise that, innocent or not. Literally nothing positive would come out of that meeting for an innocent Winston.
Honestly if you're accused of anything, unless you can basically prove your innocence, it's better to just exercise the 5th. "Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in the court of law." Notice how there is nothing in there stating "or to help you." If they have nothing definitive they can't really do that much unless you give them something.
This is even more true here since it's mostly hearsay with contradicting accounts from the accuser. Don't want to say something and have misrepresented to corroborate one of those stories since the law is less in your favor in these cases.
Total agreement. Any lawyer I have ever spoken to has always said something to the extent of, "never, never, never, never, EVER speak to the police or a jurisdictional authority without a lawyer present." It's alarmingly easy for someone to see implicating evidence in a statement you make off the cuff without knowing what you just said, i.e. keep your mouth shut 'til someone who knows the system can save you from yourself.
Right...just watch Law and Order. They always say to the suspect, "You better speak up now or we won't be able to help you. Unless you confess now, the plea offer is off the table."
If I were accused of this, I wouldn't say a word either.
That being said, its ridiculous that he gets off and two other players take the fall.
How is it ridiculous? The two other players did not take the fall because were involved in something different than the Winston "rape" from what I've read.
I don't see anything outrageous about this story. The two that were punished apparently had recorded the sex act, which was solid evidence they had broken the code of conduct.
Winston did the right thing in declining to volunteer any testimony to the University. They didn't ask if he raped the girl. They intended to ask him a series of questions where even an innocent answer could be made to look incriminating.
I don't know if he raped a girl or not, and if he did and it is proved, he should go to jail for it. But there is never any sense in giving even a judicial body any sort of threads to string you up with if they miss on sticking you with the more juicy accusation, much less a quasi-judicial one like most University honor courts or internal investigative teams whose standards of proof are far lower than in the justice system.
You aren't brought before any process like that because they want to clear you, and if they tell you otherwise, they are probably lying.
So believe Winston's story or not, you could all learn an important lesson about not giving anyone in a position to punish you any more information than you are legally required to.
brings new light to the quote: "At Florida State- if we gonna do it then, we do it BIG then" - J. Winston
Please dont make me laugh that hard at 6am ever again...
If questioned by authority, no matter your level of guilt or innocence the first words fro your mouth need to be:" I need to call my lawyer, I refuse to answer any questions until my legal team is present."
No trouble for Winston I say. Because the Homer in me wants him on the field when we play them in the ACCCG.
You mean when our D kicks the shit outta him in the ACCCG.
Well, now it appears its going to be FSU's turn under the microscope as the Department of Education has opened an investigation into FSU's handling of this case:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10724489/florida-state-se...
Great. A rape accusation has been made. Someone must pay. Big Government is here to make sure justice is done.
I feel so much better.
Innocent or guilty...FSU and the local police handled this really, really bad.
Why is a federal agency involved in a local matter?
This is pretty much a rhetorical question, because the answer is "because they want to and they can".
Call me crazy, but if it was handled poorly, maybe the state of Florida ought to decide that.
Because it involved Title IX implications. If FSU is found to be at fault, they stand to lose all their federal funding, that includes research grants and any other money from the government. You could be talking about anywhere from $100M-$1B in federal money at FSU.
I think the biggest problem for FSU is that the investigation by OCR will not just focus on this event. Its going to look at all events over the last three years at FSU.
So, if the federal government comes in and determines that the Athletic Department/University are at fault and that they may have purposely obstructed the investigation, does that give the NCAA the ability to step in and punish FSU? Could they vacate last season, including the championship? Traditionally, the NCAA stayed out of criminal matters, but the PSU case kind of changed that. I also think I remember reading during the Miami mess that NCAA investigators could use federal court testimony to look at potential infractions (or were they not allowed to do this and had to throw out evidence).
Of course, if the championship is vacated, that will only make ESPN's SEC love-fest even worse, since it would mean that the SEC technically did not "lose".
They stripped USC of its championship during the Reggie Bush era, so I would imagine that yes, it could be done. Will it? If the current NCAA trend continues, nothing will be done about it. And that's IF the federal government even brings in significant findings in this investigation AND its tied directly to the current football team. The OCR is going to review all sexual cases brought on the FSU campus in the last three years so it could have findings that do not involve the current football players.
I went and upvoted all your downvotes because I sense you have a disdain in "Big Guberment" like me even though ltrepeter2000's post on why they're getting involved makes sense.
I think it was more of the "someone must pay" that someone interpreted as insensitivity to victims. This is a very touchy subject and I've seen comments like that turn into all out flame wars on boards and even discussions among friends.
Still didn't warrant down votes, but that's the way 'Murica is sometimes
Thanks Ranger.
Yeah -- it is pathetic that some people are incapable of actually defending an opinion, so they simply downvote the opinion they chose to interpret and disagree with.
Sort of like all those other people in the world demanding other people be fired for holding contrary personal opinions about a matter that has nothing to do with the business they are in.
Couldn't be bothered with an actual debate. They have identified "intolerant" speech, and that simply cannot be tolerated.
My mistake was in making those comments on my phone waiting on a flight, so I couldn't properly make sure I paid obeisance to the sacred calves of every other person who might find cause for offense.
So to everyone who downvoted me?
You be sure to giggle yourselves to sleep tonight in your big fluffy pillows. It'll only take you another 2000 downvotes to get me banned.
I will admit that I downvoted your first comment. I did not downvote your subsequent comments. I would also like to make the distinction that I downvoted the first comment, not you. While, I found your need to drop a shot at Big Government into a discussion of the mishandling of a rape investigation to be in bad taste, and uninformed, as ltrepeter2000 pointed out, it is not why I downvoted it.
Under the Community Guidelines is says to not discuss politics. Using the phrase "Big Government" in a condescending matter is expressing a political opinion. The Key Play is an island of sanity in the sea of monkey shit that is the internet. A comment that you deem as inoffensive may be seen by others as an invitation to descend into a political rabbit hole that most on this site would rather not go down.
Full disclosure, I do not agree or disagree with your apparent disdain of Big Government. I do not identify as Republican or Democrat as I see the issues facing us as very complex and nuanced, and not served by buzz words, slogans, or catch-phrases. But here is the problem. In explaining my downvote, I too have now violated the Community Guidelines by discussing politics.
I did not downvote your other posts because they were not political in nature. This had nothing to do with contrary opinions or sacred calves. I simply downvoted your first comment because it violates the Community Guidelines. In terms of scale, it was probably more akin to wreckless driving than murder in regards to breaking the law, but dropping political buzzwords into unrelated topics is just inviting monkey shit covered swimmers onto our pristine island.
uhoh facts are coming out... no idea if this is true but still not good
Article FSU
What is that supposed to mean? Everyone already knew they had sex. Winston even admitted to having sex with her. Having sex outside of a monogamous relationship is not rape.
Winston's contention all along has been that it was consensual. This part of the story was revealed a long time ago, because they spoke to how the woman screamed at them to get out and close the door because she saw one of the roommates was recording it. The State had that evidence when they chose not to prosecute. My only question is where is the recording?
The uproar here is why did it take FSU another five or six months after the State investigation and a year and a half after the incident actually occurred to do this investigation into the incident.
Didn't you hear? It was football season.
he was really busy. Best to investigate/prosecute when it's convenient for the accused.