Ex-Fairview QB Atkinson faces additional charges

Former Fairview High School quarterback Aidan Atkinson will face additional charges in connection with previous allegations of sexual assault, a Boulder police spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Atkinson, 18, will not be rearrested, public information officer Dean Cunningham said, and the charges will be added to the juvenile case already pending against him.

“Because Aidan was already arrested for previous charges, as the investigation continued looked into information we had and they are just going to add the charges,” Cunningham said.

He said he did not know exactly when the charges would be added, although he was notified about them Thursday, and declined to provide any additional detail on the case.

Cunningham referred questions to the Boulder County District Attorney’s office, which did not return multiple requests for comment Thursday evening.

Atkinson, who is no longer attending classes at Fairview, was arrested in November and accused of sexually assaulting a female student during homecoming in 2018.

The female student told authorities she’d been drinking on homecoming night and she was on a party bus when she sat beside Atkinson. She said she couldn’t stand up because she was intoxicated, and said Atkinson started to touch her sexually, according to an arrest affidavit filed against a Boulder social worker who has been charged with failure to report child abuse in connection to the case against Atkinson.

“I told him to stop because I didn’t like it,” the victim told authorities, according to court records. She added later, “I couldn’t escape or leave, and no one was helping. There were people around who saw and didn’t do anything.”

The female student, who has not been publicly identified, said Atkinson assaulted her again at a restaurant later that night even though she repeatedly told him to stop.

It was not clear Thursday whether the additional charges that will be brought against Atkinson are in connection with that incident or another incident.

Atkinson, a record-breaking quarterback at Fairview, had been verbally committed to play for Northwestern but was not listed among the team’s early signees in the 2020 recruiting class.