Expelled after rape allegations, UCF student fights to return
A UCF student expelled last year over allegations he raped a female student after a night of drinking in 2015 is fighting in court to return to school.
“I didn’t do this,” he testified at his school discipline hearing, according to court records from his November civil lawsuit filed in Orange Circuit Court. “I want my student life back.”
In a response to the lawsuit filed last month, the University of Central Florida said it expelled the student in October after a disciplinary panel determined the woman was heavily intoxicated and could not have consented to sex. That ruling came after a bathroom attendant at the downtown club reported seeing her ill, and the panel also believed the woman’s statement that she had been drinking heavily and threw up several times.
The Orlando Sentinel is not identifying the 21-year-old Deltona man because he was not charged with a crime. Prosecutors said they did not pursue a criminal case against him because of problems with the accuser’s credibility and a miss-
ing key witness, documents from the OrangeOsceola State’s Attorney Office show.
The woman, now 21 and from Pensacola, had previously accused the man’s roommate of sexual assault, the man’s lawsuit says, and the roommate is suing her over those allegations.
The expelled student was a junior studying biomedical sciences when the allegations surfaced. A group of friends and acquaintances decided to party together on Nov. 14-15, 2015, in downtown Orlando.
The woman, who was under the legal drinking age, left the club alone with the man, and they took a Lyft back to his apartment near campus, the court records and an Orange County Sheriff’s report show.
The woman, who said she was too drunk to tell him no, recounted the taxi driver telling the man to stop touching her. She said her memory was hazy after they left the cab but he forced himself on her again in his bedroom, according to school documents in the court case filed by the expelled student.
“I remember being confused and naked and just staring at myself trying to get a grip on the situation,” the woman wrote in a statement to UCF. “I knew in that moment what happened to me and I cannot begin to describe that feeling, the feeling of realization and fear.”
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was notified. It investigated and recommended the man be charged with sexual battery, but the state attorney’s office declined to press charges in April 2016.
Authorities never found the Lyft driver to interview, according to state attorney case files. The man also passed a polygraph test.
But the woman’s Nov. 19, 2015, complaint to UCF triggered a school investigation, and the university ruled the man was guilty of violating sexual misconduct rules outlined in the student handbook.
According to the lawsuit filed against UCF, the man said the sex was consensual and that she made up the allegation because her boyfriend had caught her cheating on him. The man also disputed the fairness of his hearing because he was not allowed to bring up her previous sexual assault allegations against his roommate, according
According to the suit filed against UCF, the man said the sex was consensual and that she made up the allegation because her boyfriend had caught her cheating on him.
to his lawsuit.
In a separate complaint she filed with UCF officials in January 2016, the woman said his roommate also sexually assaulted her in November 2015 after they drank in a Walt Disney World hotel. UCF later cleared the roommate, who was not charged with a crime, according to the expelled man’s lawsuit. A UCF spokeswoman said the school won’t comment on pending litigation.
The roommate sued the woman in October to recoup lost wages and legal expenses. The case is still pending.
The expelled man’s lawyer, Tad Yates, and the woman both declined to comment for this story.
Since late 2015, at least three others — a Rollins lacrosse player, a UCF ROTC cadet and a UCF freshman — have sued after they said they were unfairly punished for sexual assault allegations they denied committing. The courts rejected one case while two are still pending.
“These cases often do get really complicated,” said Patricia Davis, a Dallas attorney who has represented both rape accusers and accused.
Davis said sexual assault cases involving college students and heavy alcohol often don’t lead to criminal prosecutions.
“If [prosecutors] see where there’s no physical evidence or very little evidence, and it’s a typical he said-she said, and there’s alcohol involved and whatever other issues night be involved — they’re less likely to prosecute that case,” the attorney said.
Both the man and his accuser said they had suffered in the wake of the incident.
The woman told UCF she struggled emotionally and her grades dropped.
“I’ve waited since last year for justice, for some peace of mind,” she wrote to the UCF disciplinary board. “I can’t imagine a sanction of anything less than expulsion to be acceptable for everything my family and I have endured.”
The man said his dreams of finishing his education and becoming a doctor were damaged.
“I honestly never believed something like this could happen,” he testified during his discipline hearing. “This has been the scariest and most depressing experience of my life.”
grusson@ orlandosentinel.com