Officials discussed player’s conduct before 2012 rape
Emails show disciplinary action against Elliott was put on hold in 2011.
Top Baylor University administrators discussed sexual assault allegations against a football player and put potential disci- plinary action on hold months before he raped another student, according to emails and other documents filed in a Title IX lawsuit against the school.
Art Briles, the former head football coach fired in May 2016 during the university’s sexual assault scandal, handed over the documents late last month in response to a subpoena from lawyers representing 10 women suing Baylor.
Emails included in a filing Thursday reveal that administrators with oversight of student conduct discussed allegations against the player, Tevin Elliott, in October 2011, shortly before he raped a Baylor student in April 2012. Elliott is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexual assault in the case in January 2014.
Jasmin Hernandez, the victim in the case, who chose to be publicly named in a lawsuit against the school, secured a settlement a year ago.
The filing Thurs d ay alleges that Baylor’s failure to remove Elliott based on the early complaints speaks to the plaintiffs’ claims that the school’s policies created a heightened risk of assault and that Baylor denied them educational opportunities after they were assaulted.
A Texas Christian University student made the first allegation of sexual assault against Elliott in March 2011, and a second allegation of unwanted contact came from a McLennan Community College student in September 2011, according to the documents.
Baylor’s judicial affairs office learned of the second allegation in November 2011,
the document shows. Associate Director for Judicial Affairs David Mur
dock on Nov. 7, 2011, told student discipline officer Bethany McCraw, Associ- ate Vice President for Stu- dent Life Martha Lou Scott and former Director of the Office of Academic Integrity Linda Cates he would send Elliott a charge of student misconduct.
A handwritten note on judicial affairs stationery dated three days later states, “Talk to Bethany before you do anything on Tevin Elliott.”
Murdock made a note Nov. 28, 2011, that reads, “on hold indefinitely.” He wrote that he placed the case on hold to investigate further.
On Oct. 12, 2011, then-Baylor Police Chief Jim Doak
emailed then-Senior Vice President and Chief Operat- ing Officer Reagan Ramsower
about Elliott. “He has denied everything (no surprise) and now Waco PD is looking at a polygraph for him,” Doak wrote. “This is a case of ‘he said-she said,’ but her story has never varied each time she has been interviewed. I’ll keep you posted.”
More statements in that email were redacted.
Waco attorney Jim Dun- nam and Houston attorney Chad Dunn, who represent the 10 women suing the uni- versity, said a February 2017 legal filing made by Baylor regents states that Elliott was accused of assaulting five students between his 2009 enrollment and 2012 arrest and expulsion. They allege that the regents omitted details of administrators’ knowledge.
They also allege that Ramsower misled the pub
lic in a “60 Minutes Sports” interview in 2016, when he said he did not have knowledge of reports and blamed Doak for his department’s failures.
“It just shows Ramsower’s a liar,” Dunnam told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “Most importantly, it substantiates
that we have senior administrators covering up and repressing sexual assault, and it’s not exclusively an athletics issue.” In a statement after the fil
ing became available Thursday, Baylor said none of the plaintiffs in the active suit has accused Elliott of assault and that Ramsower’s comments in the 2016 broadcast did not
pertain to Elliott. It also said there is no evidence suggest
ing Ramsower was aware of the March 2011 allegation against Elliott.
Ramsower resigned in May.