Documents call into question when Baylor officials knew about sexual assaults.

Emails link 5 officials to earlier knowledge of suspected assaults

At least five high-ranking Baylor University officials outside the athletic department knew as early as November 2011, more than seven months earlier than Baylor has acknowledged, about a series of suspected sexual assaults involving football player Tevin Elliott yet did nothing about it, according to a motion accompanying documents filed Thursday in a Waco federal court.

Documents accompanying a motion filed by attorneys for 10 Jane Doe plaintiffs who have filed suit against Baylor indicate the university hid evidence from plaintiffs that came to light because the women’s attorneys received key information from attorneys for ousted Baylor coach Art Briles.

“At least five key Baylor senior non-athletic administrators were aware of Elliott’s predatorial behavior in the fall of 2011,” attorneys Chad Dunn of Houston and Jim Dunnam of Waco wrote in the motion. “They did nothing, with horrific consequences over the next five months.”

Attorneys said the documents “completely undermine what Baylor has asserted publicly … (and) further informs this court of the extent of Baylor’s massive discovery obstruction.”

University issues denial

In response to Thursday’s filing, a statement by Baylor described as “false and completely absurd” the allegation that Baylor concealed documents. Briles was in possession of the documents in question, Baylor noted, because they were part of the discovery record in a separate lawsuit involving Elliott in

which Briles was a defendant.

The documents cited by Dunn and Dunnam were received as part of their request for information from attorneys for Briles, who is not part of the lawsuit.

Included is an email exchange between Baylor Police Chief Jim Doak and Baylor executive Reagan Ramsower that shows Ramsower knew as early as October 2011 about at least one of two sexual assaults allegedly committed earlier that year by Elliott.

Another email exchange obtained from Briles’ attorneys shows that Baylor’s judicial affairs coordinator, David Murdock, emailed three Baylor senior administrators, including associate dean Bethany McCraw and associate vice president Martha Lou Scott, about another allegation against Elliott on Nov. 7, 2011.

Murdock placed a disciplinary case against Elliot on hold on Nov. 28, 2011, according to documents included with the motion, and Elliott went on to commit three more assaults after that time, according to attorneys.

Baylor has said in court documents that its judicial affairs officer was unaware of allegations against Elliott until May 2, 2012, almost seven months after the exchange between Ramsower and Doak.

Elliott, 27, eventually was accused of assaulting five women. He was convicted in January 2012 of two counts of sexual assault involving a former Baylor student and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Attorneys also allege Baylor withheld the exchanges involving Elliott from information the school provided to the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, which conducted an investigation that university regents used as the basis for their decision to fire Briles, suspend athletic director Ian McCaw (who later resigned) and to remove Ken Starr as president of the university.

The motion filed by Dunn and

Dunnam on Thursday was in support of their efforts to force Baylor to comply with a request for additional documents and to overrule Baylor’s objections to the production of documents by Briles and others who are not a party to the lawsuit. The documents produced by Briles, the attorneys said, clarify the number of Baylor officials outside the athletic department who were aware Elliott was suspected of being a sexual predator.

“What is known now in 2018 … is that Ramsower, Doak, Murdock, McCraw and Scott were themselves aware of multiple sexual assaults before Elliott raped a final student on April 15, 2012, and that these responsible parties remain in high-level positions at the school today,” they said.

Misplaced emphasis?

Baylor said it has been asked to comb through millions of pages of documents as part of the discovery process and has produced records as ordered starting from 2014, when it created a Title IX compliance office. Records involving Elliott predate that office’s creation and will be produced later this year, the school said.

The school also said the emphasis on Elliott in Thursday’s motion is misplaced because none of the plaintiffs in the case allege they were assaulted by Elliott. The statement dismissed the “conspiracy being spun by plaintiffs’ counsel” that Ramsower was aware of the March 2011 allegations against Elliott, saying no evidence suggests Ramsower knew of the case.

Baylor said many of the documents cited by the Jane Doe attorneys were cited in the May 2016 report that “outlined fundamental failures campus-wide in Baylor responding to reports of sexual violence.”