‘Disturbing progression’ of violence in UConn case

Soccer player charged with assaulting female classmate

Police investigating allegations that a UConn soccer player sexually assaulted a female classmate earlier this year obtained a series of text messages and photos that revealed a “disturbing progression” of physical and sexual violence against the woman over the course of several encounters, new court records show.

Ziyad Fekri, 21, is accused of twice using a pocket knife to force his former romantic partner to have sex against her will, both holding it to her throat and making superficial cuts across her neck and stomach during the assaults, according to a new arrest warrant affidavit released for the first time Tuesday.

The womanfeared for her life but documented her injuries and shared some details with friends and roommates, who ultimately helped her approach police to share their messages and photo evidence with investigators, the records show.

“I washaving a very difficult time coming in and talking about what happened to me,” the woman told investigators, according to the affidavit. “I have been told by others that sexual assault cases were very difficult to endure for the victim and was worried about putting myself through all of those emotions and reliving what happened to me.

“I have not been seeing Fekri and am very angry at him for what he did to me,” she said. “I know he did sexually assault me on two occasions and I now do want him held accountable for how he hurt me.”

Fekri was first arrested Feb. 15 on several assault charges, at which point he was suspended from the soccer team. He has not been living on campus since, university officials said.

But the UConn police investigation continued into the alleged assaults, including those photos and messages, and Fekri was arrested again last week by FBI agents in New York on two new first-degree sexual assault offenses and another unlawful restraint offense, court records show.

He was extradited back to Connecticut this week and he has been released from custody on $325,000 total bond for all of the charges, court records show.

The alleged assaults began in January when Fekri and a woman on the school’s track team began a casual sexual relationship that quickly escalated into arguments and physical attacks, according to the warrant affidavit.

The woman’s teammates and friends noticed she had black eyes and cuts, but she dismissed them as either accidents or nothing they should worry about, those friends told police. They grew increasingly concerned, however, and at one point even moved the victim to another apartment for a week to avoid Fekri after he showed up at her apartment unannounced, they said.

The assaults grew worse as the weeks wore on, including punches, hair pulling and grabbing her by the neck, she told police.

After the woman broke up with Fekri at the end of January, the assaults culminated in two, nearly identical, violent attacks in the first two weeks of February, she said.

The second incident occurred early the morning of Feb. 14 and the victim described in vivid detail that Fekri entered her apartment, unlocked for her roommates, and attacked her after she refused to have sex with him, she told investigators. He punched her in the face, hit her head against the bed frame and used the pocket knife to cut across her stomach when she pleaded with him to stop, she said.

“I was truly afraid if I fought back he might kill me,” she told investigators.

The following afternoon she approached police for the first time but initially refused to give investigators Fekri’s name, asking them not to contact him or let him find out she had spoken to police, according to the investigator’s notes of that day.

A friend helped police identify Fekri, who was arrested later that day and charged with assault with a weapon, third-degree assault, disorderly conduct and unlawful restraint but no sex crimes, records show.

Over the next several weeks, however, the woman spoke with more investigators and several friends and teammates also provided more information to police.

Images of her injuries, voice memos and text screenshots provided to police confirmed their accounts and “articulate a disturbing progression over an approximate month-long time frame of the significant injuries committed,” investigators concluded.

Police obtained an additional arrest warrant for Fekri on March 26 and attempted to arrest him then, but they did not find him at his university-assigned housing that day, police said last week.

They learned he was instead staying with friends in Elmsford, New York, and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force took him into custody as a fugitive from justice on March 30.

Fekri is still enrolled at UConn but has not lived on campus or taken in-person courses since his first arrest, university spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said last week. She declined to offer further details about any university actions against Fekri, citing the ongoing investigations.