CIVIL SUIT ACCUSES PLAYERS FROM AZTECS AND BUFFALO BILLS OF GANG RAPING GIRL, 17

UPDATE AS OF 8/27:  Bills have released Matt Araiza following allegations.

By Miriam Raftery

August 25, 2022 (San Diego) – Three current or former San Diego State University Aztecs football players, including one who is now a pro football player with the Buffalo Bills, are accused  in a civil lawsuit of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl during an off-campus Halloween party last year.

The accused are Matt Araiza, a star punter with the Buffalo Bills, Zavier Leonard, a current Aztecs player, and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko, a former Aztecs player. Araiza received the Ray Guy Award last November as the top punter nationwide in college football.

San Diego Police, following an investigation, have referred evidence against all three men to the San Diego County District Attorney to consider filing criminal charges.

According to the lawsuit, the under-age victim was a Grossmont High School student who had been drinking with friends at other parties before going to the Halloween party at a residence on Rockford Drive on October 17, 2021.  The girl, referred to as Jane Doe to protect her identity, became separated from her friend and was approached by Araiza.

The suit contends that Araiza handed the intoxicated minor a drink that contained “not other alcohol, but other intoxicating substances.”  After having sex with her in the yard, the suit says Araiza led the girl inside the home and into a bedroom, then threw her onto a bed face down, where she was gang-raped from behind by three other men, two of whom are the defendants named above.

Doe allegedly went “in an out of consciousness” as the violent assault continued for an hour and a half, until the party was shut down, the suit states. She then “stumbled out of the room bloody and crying.”  Piercings in her nose, belly button and ears had been ripped out and she was bleeding from her private area, the suit contends. Photos provided by her lawyer, Dan Gilleon, to ECM news partner 10 News show red marks and bruising around her throat and on her leg.

Doe immediately told her friends she had been raped and reported the rape to San Diego Police the next day. 

She retrieved her phone, which she said was taken away, using a phone finder app.  After an SDPD officer determined she was a victim of a violent crime, she was taken to a hospital for examination, the suit states.

Police asked Doe to make a “pretext call” to Araiza and screenshots were taken as evidence. Araiza admitted having sex with Doe and told her she should get tested for chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, and told her he’d tested positive.

Sex with a person under age 18 is statutory rape under the law, whether it is consensual or not. The suit accuses the three football players of rape, gender violence and false imprisonment for subjecting the teen to “cruel and unjust hardship.”  The property owner is also being sued for premises liability.  

Gilleon called the incident a “horrific crime, the kind of which happens all too often,” in an interview with Times of San Diego.  He accused SDSU, SDPD, The DA and Buffalo Bills of acting as “enablers looking the other way in denial that my client deserves justice even if the defendants are prized athletes.”

Araiza’s lawyer, Kerry Armstrong, claims the lawsuit is a “shakedown because he’s now with the Buffalo Bills” and claims the rape accusation is false, according to the Los Angeles Times, though Doe reported the alleged crimes the morning after, long before Araiza was drafted by the Buffalo Bills as a rookie. 

Leonard’s attorney, in a statement reported by 10 News, declined comment on the suit while the investigation is ongoing, but said “no conclusion should be jumped to regarding this young man.” 

Ewaliko’s attorney issued a statement reading, “At the present, the District Attorney is reviewing the matter and no charges have been filed. The civil action does not have any bearing on any criminal charges.”

SDSU waited until last month to announce its own Title IX investigation into the alleged rapes and did not issue any warning to students about the alleged crimes, nor did it name those accused. 

A statement from SDSU has indicated that the school was asked by police not to conduct its own inquiry to avoid potentially compromising the police department’s criminal probe, since the latter includes subpoena powers. However, the university has stated  that it takes allegations of sexual assault “”seriously” and is complying with California State University policies.

“If a student is found to be in violation of the student code of conduct, as the result of a thorough investigation, disciplinary action includes but is not limited to suspension, dismissal or expulsion,” the statement concludes.

The Buffalo Bills sent a statement to 10 News which states they were recently made aware of the complaint.  “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.”