Student charged with sexually assaulting woman at Rivier University in New Hampshire

A 20-year-old Connecticut man is charged with sexually assaulting a woman at Rivier University in Nashua, New Hampshire, court documents show. 

Michael Singleton, a student at the school, was arrested in Nashua Monday on a charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault, according to a police report filed in Nashua Circuit Court. He pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Tuesday and is due back in court on Oct. 15 for a probable cause hearing.

Nashua police said they took a report from the woman on Oct. 4 at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center. The alleged assault happened the day before at the Catholic university.

"Rivier University is aware of the allegation and is cooperating fully with law enforcement while moving forward consistent with Federally required Title IX processes," a spokesperson for the college said in a statement to WBZ-TV.

WBZ-TV has reached out to Singleton's family for comment. 

The woman told police she was raped in a bathroom inside a dorm suite where members of the men's basketball team live, according to the report. She said she drank alcohol and became intoxicated at a party in the suite earlier in the night, but had left and gone to a different, nearby suite with friends.

That's where friends of the woman told police they carried her to a couch and left her sleeping.

Later, the woman said she remembers being in a private bathroom with Singleton but was unsure how she got there or became undressed.

"She did not remember the incident in depth because of her level of intoxication, but she remembered they were both standing and Michael being behind her," the police report said. "She remembered verbally trying to tell him 'no' and that she did not want to do this."

At one point, the woman said she remembered a friend knocking on the door of the bathroom and asking Singleton if he had seen her.

"Michael reportedly put his hand over [her] mouth and stated he had not," the report said. 

The report said the woman remembered telling a friend hours later, "I didn't say yes, I don't remember saying yes." It also said she called her father the next morning and "told him she had gotten really drunk and 'got taken advantage of.'"

According to the report, police interviewed a witness who said Singleton showed videos of himself and the woman having sex because he wanted to prove the encounter was consensual. Singleton also reportedly told a suitemate interviewed by police that he was "not a rapist."

Police are asking anyone with information about the case to contact them.