Lawsuit alleges rape by 3 MSU basketball players

A federal lawsuit filed Monday alleges three Michigan State basketball players raped a female student in 2015 and the university failed to offer her the proper resources for help.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Western District of Michigan Southern Division, does not name the woman, nor the three players, who are no longer at the school. Instead, it is focused “with the way she was treated by the university,” the student’s attorney, Karen Truszkowski, told ESPN’s Outside the Lines.

The lawsuit states that the woman met the three basketball players at a bar in East Lansing on April 12, 2015 – one week after Michigan State lost to Duke in the Final Four. The woman, a journalism major interested in sports reporting, was offered a drink by one of the players and asked if she wanted to meet the “other guys” from the team. The players invited her to a party at an off-campus apartment, allegedly telling her that her roommate was already on her way there, and she accepted a ride to the party.

According to the lawsuit, the woman “was feeling discombobulated,” which prevented her from sending a text. The woman said one of the players told her, “You know you’re mine for the night?” and she responded that she was just trying to find her friend. The second player then invited her to his room to see basketball memorabilia, which she accepted as a sports fan.

In the room, she was given a glass of water and was “drinking the water when the room went dark,” the lawsuit states. She said in the lawsuit that she was forcefully thrown facedown onto the bed and was held down as the three players took turns raping her. She was crying and could not speak and did not consent to the activity, according to the lawsuit.

The woman maintains she didn’t remember anything until waking up on a couch the next morning. The woman told Outside the Lines she was scared to report the incident to police at the time for fear of getting in trouble for underage drinking.

The lawsuit is the latest black mark for Michigan State this year. An “Outside the Lines” report in January accused the school of covering up a series of sexual-assault claims involving the athletic department.

In addition, Larry Nassar, who worked as an osteopathic physician for USA Gymnastics and was a faculty member at Michigan State, was sentenced in January to 40 to 175 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of molestation.