Summary: Treon Harris’s lawyers issue a statement maligning the alleged victim of Harris’s sexual assault.
Treon Harris’s lawyers have released a statement maligning the character of the woman accusing Harris of sexual assault. Harris, 19, is the University of Florida’s freshman quarterback, recently granting the Gators a 10-9 triumph at Tennessee. Upon the investigation into his misconduct, however, he has been placed on “interim suspension,” banning him from campus and team activities. Police are doing a thorough investigation into the matter – as University police spokesman Maj. Brad Barber put it, “an investigation of this nature is going to take time. It’s going to be thorough, and it’s going to be complete before whatever actions are taken” – leaving his attorneys, Johnson & Osteryoung, with the task of drafting a damning letter that does more than say Harris is cooperating with the investigation, but also puts the alleged victim’s character into question.
“We know that an individual has given testimony to law enforcement that he had sexual relations with the alleged victim less than an hour before the alleged sexual conduct with our client took place,” said the attorneys in a statement. “In fact, testimony indicates that the young lady in question was the sexual aggressor in that interaction.”
Their statement also indicated that “we want to dispel the idea that the alleged victim and our client didn’t know each other. Our client and the alleged victim knew each other to the extent that they had each other’s cell phone numbers and had previously spent time together of their own accord for the purpose of socializing together.”
A wordy way of saying they had the beginning of a friendship, but still rather irrelevant when commenting on the possibility of rape. After all, most rape victims know their rapists.
“We have provided law enforcement with multiple witnesses that will indicate what the interaction was between the alleged victim and our client before they returned to our client’s room: they were smiling and they were holding hands. They returned to the Springs Residential Complex in a car driven by another female student who was a friend of the alleged victim.”
The statement also claimed that “We believe the evidence will show the alleged victim was in fact the sexual aggressor with not one, but two young men early last Sunday morning.”
Of course, a woman who was the sexual aggressor with two men earlier that day can still be raped. The lawyers might as well have stuck to the matter of clearing out the known facts: that Harris did not force his way into the young woman’s room, that he is cooperating with the investigation, and so forth.
The lawyers voiced their opinion that “we do not believe that Mr. Harris will be arrested or prosecuted. That is because of our experience and the facts of this case. He is not guilty of a crime and did not mistreat this young lady in any way that night.”
Certainly we’d expect his legal support to be so optimistic, but we will see how warranted their hopes in fact are.