TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Nearly one year after Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was accused of rape by a female FSU student, the state attorney has decided not to charge the Heisman Trophy favorite.
Thursday’s decision clears the way for him to finish the season with the No. 1 Seminoles.
Willie Meggs, the state attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit, formally announced the move during a news conference Thursday at the Leon County Courthouse. Winston had faced felony charges after being accused of sexually assaulting the woman at an off-campus apartment on Dec. 7, 2012.
“We’ve carefully examined all the evidence in this case and have concluded that no charges will be brought against anyone in this case,” Meggs said.
Meggs and his office have been investigating the case for the past three weeks, and they interviewed the accuser about two weeks ago. Last month, ESPN.com reported that DNA found in the woman’s underwear matched Winston’s DNA. His attorney, Tim Jansen of Tallahassee, said Winston had consensual sex with the woman. But the woman’s attorney, Patricia Carroll of Tampa, Fla., said the star quarterback raped her 19-year-old client, a former FSU student, who withdrew from classes after the allegations resurfaced in media reports last month.
“We have a duty as prosecutors to determine if each case has a reasonable likelihood of conviction,” Meggs said. “After reviewing the facts in this case, we do not feel that we can reach those burdens.”
While the case could be reopened if new evidence was found, Meggs indicated that “he had no earthly idea what that would be.”
Meggs was asked if Winston received preferential treatment in the case.
“We try to treat everyone fairly and I think we have a track record of doing that,” he said.
Meggs wouldn’t say whether his decision was a vindication for Winston, saying that he would “leave that to you all after you review the facts.”
He revealed that while Winston’s DNA was present in the sexual assault kit, the DNA of another male was also found, complicating the investigation. That person had to be identified, but he was not associated with the complaint, Meggs said.
Meggs said that documents related to the case were being released.
Search warrants in the case were released before Meggs’ announcement and indicate the woman told police she was raped at an apartment after a night of drinking at a bar. In the warrant, the accuser says she and friends had shots at Potbellys and her “memory is very broken from that point forward.”
Meggs said that toxicology reports show the accuser had a blood alcohol level of .04 and that there was no evidence of drugs, including what are commonly referred to as date rape drugs.
According to the warrants, the accuser says she remembers being in a cab with a man and going into an apartment before she was raped.
After that, she remembers the suspect dressing her, putting her on a scooter and dropping her off at an intersection, but she had no idea where the alleged rape occurred.
Carroll and Jansen couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. FSU coach Jimbo Fisher was expected to address the media after the Seminoles’ practice on Thursday, but the school indicated that Winston likely will not speak.
If Winston, a redshirt freshman from Bessemer, Ala., had been charged with a felony crime by the state attorney’s office, he would have been immediately suspended from the team and ineligible for competition under FSU athletics department policy. Now, Winston can finish the season with the Seminoles, who are heavy favorites to defeat No. 20 Duke in Saturday night’s ACC championship game in Charlotte, N.C. With one more victory, the Seminoles (12-0, 8-0 ACC) would punch their tickets to the Jan. 6 VIZIO BCS National Championship at Rose Bowl Stadium.
The accuser initially reported the alleged rape to FSU police on the night of the incident. Since the incident took place away from campus, FSU police immediately referred the case to Tallahassee police. The woman’s attorney has been critical of the way Tallahassee police handled the case from the beginning. In a statement released two weeks ago, Carroll wrote that a TPD police officer told her that Tallahassee is a “big football town, and the victim needs to think long and hard before proceeding against [Winston] because she will be raked over the coals and her life will be made miserable.”
Last week, Tallahassee police issued a timeline of the case and defended their handling of the investigation. According to the timeline, TPD said the woman didn’t identify Winston as her alleged attacker until Jan. 10, more than a month after the incident. Tallahassee police said evidence from the woman’s rape kit was sent to the state crime lab on Jan. 15, and Winston declined to be interviewed by police on Jan. 23.
In February, Tallahassee police put the case in “open/inactive” status because the accuser decided she didn’t wish to prosecute the case. But Carroll has vehemently denied that the woman ever wanted to drop the investigation.
As for the long delay in the case reaching the state attorney’s office, Meggs said: “Obviously it would have been somewhat better if we had all gotten into this case a little bit earlier. Time is important and it’s certainly would have been nice all what we know now in December.”
Winston, who has passed for 3,490 yards with 38 touchdowns and five interceptions in his first season as a starter, might become the second consecutive freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. Last season, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win college football’s most coveted individual honor. Many Heisman Trophy voters were waiting to learn the results of the criminal investigation before casting their ballots. The deadline for ballots to be turned in is Monday.
Information from ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach was used in this report.
Story courtesy of ESPN.com