‘Revenge porn’ charge for football player
Nebraska running back was star at a Sunnyvale high school
Spurned by an ex-girlfriend, a former South Bay football standout turned University of Nebraska running back has been charged with revenge porn, accused of sending her an intimidating text accompanying a sex video taken of her when she was in high school, authorities say.
Maurice Washington III, 19, of San Jose, faces 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.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and its Sexual Assault Felony Task Force launched the investigation
— first reported by NBC Bay Area — after they were contacted by the mother of a woman who dated Washington when they both attended The King’s Academy high school in Sunnyvale. Washington was charged in December.
Clarissa Hamilton, a supervising deputy district attorney for sexual assaults in the county, said that while a search warrant was issued for Washington’s smartphone, an arrest warrant has not been signed and there are currently no plans to extradite Washington back to California.
“We have a lot of young people posting things online nowadays. But the bottom line is that when someone has something unfortunate happen to them and they’re a minor, and someone keeps (evidence of) that, that can cause emotional distress,” Hamilton said Monday. “We think of child porn cases where someone has thousands of images, but even when it’s just one, that is no less egregious for
the victim.”
The victim, who was identified as Jane Doe in a 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 in a minivan when she was 15, accompanied by the message, “Remember this hoe.”
Doe told NBC Bay Area in a statement that the experience has deeply affected her life and made her distrustful in general.
“I had so many dreams and goals, but my life became focusing on fixing what was broken inside of me. … I used to be the type of person that saw the good in everybody and gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. Now, I don’t let people in because
I am so afraid that I will be hurt again,” the victim said.
Detectives wrote that the video was from a sexual encounter involving Doe and two male schoolmates from approximately March 2016 that was distributed among other students at The King’s Academy, where school administrators “made everyone they knew to be in possession of the video delete it.” 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.
Washington previously was represented in the case by Jon Bruning, former attorney general of Nebraska. His current attorney, John C. Ball, issued a statement Monday in response to the news report and charges against his client.
“Mr. Washington did not make the video, nor does he appear in the video,” the statement reads. “The incident is alleged to have taken place in California, several years ago. 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. 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.”
Monday, after the NBC report published online, the Nebraska athletic department acknowledged it had been alerted to a “prior incident” involving Washington but said officials were not aware of the full scope of the case. Washington was allowed to play his full freshman season.
“Last fall we were contacted by the Nebraska Attorney General’s office and the University of NebraskaLincoln police department and made aware that officials in California were interested in interviewing Maurice Washington about a prior incident,” the statement reads. “Details were not shared and there was no additional follow up with the Nebraska Athletic Department. Recently, we were made aware that charges may be filed against Maurice
in California. We have not had a chance to review the charges, and will continue to monitor this ongoing legal process.”
Scott Meadows, head of school at The King’s Academy, responded to an inquiry from this news organization by noting that the reported assault did not occur on school grounds and Washington was no longer with the school when the video surfaced.
“In this case, the incident in question did not happen during school hours, nor did it happen on school property. We can confirm that two students made a video during an off-campus encounter with another student, but school officials did not view the video. Instead, we referred the parents of the alleged victim to their local police department because of her age and because this happened after school hours,” reads a statement from the school. “I would also add that Maurice Washington was not a student at The King’s Academy at the time that this incidence arose.”
Indeed, after playing football for a couple of years at The King’s Academy that included a standout sophomore season, he transferred to his home school, Oak Grove High School in San Jose. According to a profile in the Omaha World-Herald, King’s had fired an assistant coach Washington was close to and he “was also starting to feel uncomfortable in a private school setting.” The transfer was deemed athletically motivated, and Washington was barred from playing football at Oak Grove. Trinity Christian High School in Cedar Hill, Texas, offered him a spot, so Washington transferred there for his senior year.
Washington’s father, also Maurice, signed briefly with the Oakland Raiders before dying of cancer at 27 when the younger Washington was in elementary school.
The victim said in her statement that she wasn’t ready to process what happened at first but is now prepared to speak out.
“I am not going to sit back anymore and just watch what happens to me,” she said. “I am going to say something.”