Jameis Winston atty: Quarterback did "nothing wrong"
The attorney for the Florida State football star accused of rape reportedly said Thursday that his client had consensual sex with the alleged victim.
According to the Associated Press, when asked if the sex between Jameis Winston and the alleged victim was consensual attorney Tim Jansen said "absolutely."
But, when asked to confirm, he apparently backpedaled, saying "I'm not saying that...I'm saying the eyewitnesses that were there will verify that any material that was found, or any evidence that was found, is consistent with him (doing) nothing wrong."
The Tallahassee-Democrat reports that Jansen also said that Winston volunteered a DNA sample to the Tallahassee police last week. The rape allegedly occurred on Dec. 7, 2012. ESPN has reported that the sample matched one found in the alleged victim's underwear. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed to Crimesider that they conducted DNA and toxicology tests in the case and sent the results to the Tallahassee police and the State Attorney's office on Wednesday. A spokeswoman would not comment on when they received the samples.
Jansen has not returned CBS News' Crimesider's calls for comment.
The case garnered national attention Wednesday when the alleged victim's family released a statement blasting the Tallahassee Police Department's "questionable" handling of the case and accusing them of discouraging the woman from filing a report against the Heisman trophy candidate and failing to properly investigate her allegations.
According to a statement released by Patricia Carroll, the attorney representing the alleged victim and her family, the detective on the case discouraged the woman from making a formal report, and refused to perform standard investigative actions, including obtaining a DNA sample or interviewing Winston's roommate, who may have witnessed the alleged incident.
The victim's name has not been released publicly, but according to
the statement, the woman alleges that she was raped on Dec. 7, 2012. The
woman was apparently initially uncertain who had allegedly
attacked her, but by the next month, according to the statement, was able to identify the alleged assailant as Winston, the quarterback
for Florida State University's highly ranked football team.
From there, the story gets more complicated. The victim alleges that the detective on the case, identified as Detective Angulo, seemed concerned that the allegation not be made public. The detective allegedly refused - despite repeated requests over several months - to take a DNA sample or interview Winston's roommate because that would alert Winston.
However, the statement alleges that as the detective was telling the woman he didn't want to take the samples for fear of alerting Winston and thus making the case public, Tallahassee police had notified Winston's attorney of the accusation, "which allowed him all of this time to create his defense and prepare his witnesses."
On Wednesday evening, Tallahassee Police Chief Tom Coe told reporters that the case was classified as "inactive" in Feb. 2013 after "the victim in that case broke off contact with the Tallahassee Police Department and her attorney indicated she did not want to move forward at that time."
Carroll told the Associated Press that the victim never told police she did not want to press charges and denies she broke off contact with police.
It is unclear when the case was finally forwarded to the State Attorney's office; the Tallahassee police are not commenting on that aspect of the case and State Attorney William Meggs also did not return a request to
comment.
According to the family's statement, Detective Angulo told an attorney who was acting as the victim's representative that "Tallahassee was a big football town and the victim needs to think long and hard before proceeding against him because she will be raked over the coals and her life will be made miserable."
Chief Coe did not address this in his Wednesday statement, nor the alleged victim's allegations that she was pressured not to file a report against Winston.
Winston is a front-runner for the Heisman trophy, college football's highest individual honor.
