New lawsuit against Baylor alleges 52 rapes by 31 football players

A new lawsuit filed Friday against Baylor University alleged that 31 football players at the school committed 52 rapes from 2011 to 2014, including gang rapes, and that coaches helped arrange sex for players, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The Title IX lawsuit — filed by a Baylor graduate identified as “Elizabeth Doe” who alleged being gang-raped by two players — painted the Bears’ football program under former head coach Art Briles as a “widespread culture of sexual violence and abuse of women,” according to court documents.

Most of the alleged rapes happened at off-campus parties hosted by football players, the lawsuit said, and five were gang rapes.

The lawsuit alleged that at least two gang rapes were committed by 10 or more football players at one time, with some of the players allegedly recording the assaults on their phones.

Briles was fired last year after an independent report from the Pepper Hamilton law firm found that Baylor officials failed to respond to reports of sexual assaults by football players.

The number of rapes in Friday’s allegations is far more than what has been previously reported.

Baylor regents told the Wall Street Journal in October that the scandal involved 17 women who reported sexual or domestic assaults involving 19 players.

The plaintiff in Friday’s lawsuit alleged being raped by former players Tre’Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman in April 2013.

Armstead and Chatman were later named as suspects in a rape but weren’t charged, according to the Morning News.

‘Show em a good time’

The plaintiff was a member of the football team’s Baylor Bruins hostess program.

Most schools have similar programs, which are designed to help facilitate campus visits for recruits and their families.

Under Briles, lawsuit said, the Bruins program was key part of the coaching staff’s “Show em a good time” approach to recruiting.

The coaches used sex to sell the program, the lawsuit alleged, using the Bruins to arrange sex for recruits. Once, a coach sent two members of the hostess program to two recruits’ hotel room to have sex with them, the lawsuit said, and a Bruin hostess was impregnated by a football player “on more than one occasion.”

At one point, former assistant coach Kendal Briles — Art Briles’ son who is now an assistant coach at Florida Atlantic University — allegedly asked a Dallas-area recruit, “Do you like white women?”

“Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they LOVE football players,” the lawsuit quotes Kendal Briles as saying.

The allegations in the lawsuit were uncovered through an investigation by the plaintiff’s attorney, John Clune, he said, according to ESPN.

“We have been working with Baylor on these football cases since the start of this and though we have appreciated their efforts to fix the problems, this is one that needed to be filed," Clune said. “As hard as the events at Baylor have been for people to hear, what went on there was much worse than has been reported. We do still appreciate the progress that Baylor has made and know that the school will be a better place when this case is over.”

A former Baylor assistant coach denied the lawsuit’s allegations.

“There’s no way. There is no damn way,” the coach, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, told ESPN. Where’s that come from? How does that ever get dreamt up? What makes someone put that together for a lawsuit? It’s unbelievable.”

Baylor Interim President David E. Garland issued a statement on the lawsuit Friday:

“Our hearts go out to any victims of sexual assault. Any assault involving members of our campus community is reprehensible and inexcusable. Baylor University has taken unprecedented actions that have been well-documented in response to the issue of past and alleged sexual assaults involving our campus community.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 6:31 PM with the headline "New lawsuit against Baylor alleges 52 rapes by 31 football players."