Court filing: Football player denies sending ‘revenge porn’ video

Police-obtained phone records contradict statement by former South Bay star athlete

A former South Bay football standout now playing running back at the University of Nebraska reportedly denied having or texting an underage sex video of his high school girlfriend after she rejected his online advances last year, according to newly filed court documents.

But as reported earlier this week, police-obtained phone records tell a different story. And a report from Nebraska authorities suggests the university’s athletic program might have known more about the allegations than it publicly acknowledged and decided to let the defendant play anyway.

Maurice Washington III, 19, from San Jose and Stockton, has been charged in Santa Clara County with one felony count of child pornography as well as a misdemeanor count of distributing a private sexual video to cause emotional distress, also known as California’s “revenge porn” law.

A Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office police report, included with a criminal complaint filed in Superior Court on Wednesday, largely parallels a search warrant issued in March for Washington’s smartphone records. The case came to light after the reported victim — helped by her mother — notified authorities and urged them to press charges against Washington.

The criminal complaint and police report were filed two days after a Monday NBC Bay Area report on the case — and two months after the search warrant affidavit was issued in December.

The police report includes accounts of the early interaction between authorities and the University of Nebraska athletic department. In a statement earlier this week, the university said that they had been alerted last fall to a “prior incident” involving Washington but that “details were not shared.” Washington was allowed to play his full freshman season.

But an investigator with the Nebraska attorney general’s office maintained that a lawyer for the athletics program, former state attorney general Jon Bruning, was expected to brief Washington and his coaches during that same time period.

According to a report by Nebraska Department of Justice Investigator Ed Sexton, Washington dodged his attempts to contact him on behalf of Santa Clara County detectives. On Sept. 13, Sexton reported that after he told Washington via text that he would involve the athletic director if needed, he heard back from university police Sgt. Aaron Pembleton, then Executive Associate Athletic Director Jamie Vaughn, who apparently tried to set up an

interview with Washington.

Then Sexton stated he got a Sept. 14 call with Bruning, apparently at the direction of the athletic department, during which the detective outlined the allegations.

“The nature of the case was disclosed and at the end of the discussion, it was my understanding that Bruning would talk to Washington and his coaches, then let me know if, or when I would be able to interview Washington,” Sexton wrote.

Five days later, Sexton reached Bruning, who told him that Washington “claimed to have no idea what we were talking about,” and “seemed legitimately confused and said that he didn’t have any video like that and wouldn’t send it if he did.”

The Nebraska athletic department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Sexton’s report.

That is in stark contrast to the charges and police investigation. The victim, who was identified as Jane Doe in the search warrant affidavit, reported that she got back in touch with Washington on Instagram in March 2018 to congratulate him on earning a football scholarship at Nebraska. She told detectives that Washington responded with “sexual advances toward” her online. When she spurned those advances, he became more aggressive, so she blocked him on the social-media platform.

According to the affidavit, Washington then sent her a text on March 2 that contained a short video from two years prior of her being sexually assaulted by two boys in a minivan when she was 15, accompanied by the message, “Remember this hoe.”

Detectives wrote that the video was from a sexual encounter involving Doe and two male schoolmates that happened around March 2016. The video was distributed among other students at The King’s Academy high school in Sunnyvale — where Washington and Doe once dated. School administrators “made everyone they knew to be in possession of the video delete it,” and referred Doe’s family to contact authorities. Doe reported the assault to Campbell police, and one of the boys was prosecuted. The results of that case were not made public because it was tried in juvenile court, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

While charges have been filed against Washington, an arrest warrant for him has not been signed, and there are no active plans to extradite him. Washington’s criminal-defense attorney, John C. Ball, has said he expects his client to eventually travel back to the Bay Area, but that it would be a voluntary self-surrender, not an arrest. Prosecutors said they would not object to a self-surrender arrangement.

In a formal statement Monday, Ball stressed that Washington did not participate in the video and will defer to the legal process.

“Mr. Washington will continue to be fully cooperative with the authorities in this situation. We are in contact with those authorities, and are in the process of making arrangements to move forward and resolve this matter,” the statement reads. “Mr. Washington has confidence in our justice system, and knows that he can rely on the fundamental constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence.”