WhatsNew2Day – Latest News And Breaking Headlines
Retired NFL defensive lineman and ESPN host Marcellus Wiley denied allegations that he raped a Columbia University student while attending the Ivy League school in 1994.
The alleged victim, now an Ivy League professor and sociologist, is suing Wiley, 48, in New York Supreme Court, claiming he forced himself on her in a freshman dormitory on the Manhattan campus, according to a lawsuit obtained by the New York Post.
Wiley, a second-round pick by the Buffalo Bills in 1997, posted a lengthy video to his YouTube channel on Wednesday in which he emphasized that “we did not have sexual intercourse” and even called the lawsuit “BS.”
The former lineman admitted that he was “interested” in the alleged victim and that he spent the night with her after allegedly being invited back to her room.
The accuser, who has not been named, says she lost her virginity as a result of the alleged rape and later attempted suicide.
Retired NFL defensive lineman and ESPN host Marcellus Wiley denied allegations that he raped a Columbia University student during a video shared to his YouTube channel on Wednesday
Wiley is reportedly accused of raping a Columbia University student in 1994
Wiley (left) with Columbia in the mid-1990s and (right) with the San Diego Charges in 2001
“If you’re a virgin, I won’t be your first because I don’t look at it with the same respect, esteem, and honor that you should… We messed around a bit, but no vaginal intercourse,” Wiley responded in the video .
Wiley, who worked as a commentator for ESPN, claimed the alleged victim started talking “trash” about him after they spent the night together.
He claimed she started the rumors to cover up the “shame” she felt about allegedly cheating on her boyfriend.
‘She was ashamed to mess with me when she got caught. She wasn’t ashamed of inviting me… she was just ashamed of knowing there was no future with me,” Wiley said.
The plaintiff claims that she and Wiley were friends before the fall of 1994, when he invited himself to her Upper Manhattan dorm room and said he wanted to have dinner together and listen to music.
She says she made it clear to Wiley that she wasn’t interested in sex because she was a virgin.
At first, she claims in the lawsuit, Wiley agreed.
However, according to documents obtained by the Post, Wiley began taking off her clothes after she entered the room and “forced her face down onto the mattress” before raping her multiple times.
Annemarie and Marcellus Wiley during the Zodiac Ball at the Houdini Estate on September 28
Wiley and wife Annemarie, who appears on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
She reportedly later described the attack to a friend before approaching a series of administrators at Columbia University, who prosecutors allege worked to protect Wiley. They said they had a ‘liking’ for the budding football star.
Wiley was approached by an administrator about the allegations, but “simply did not agree that it was rape,” according to the lawsuit.
Later, a residential dean, who has since died, accused the plaintiff of misunderstanding the meeting because the student was a foreigner from the Republic of Cape Verde, an archipelago and island nation in the central Atlantic Ocean.
‘(The residential dean) then told the plaintiff that in (her) opinion the defendant had not actually raped the plaintiff because the plaintiff was not from America and therefore had misinterpreted the defendant’s behavior because ”people from different cultures interpret things differently” the lawsuit reads.
As a result, Wiley was reportedly not expelled, but rather placed on academic probation and eventually completed the spring semester from his native Los Angeles in 1995.
He returned to campus and the football team in the fall.
But the former NFL star refuted the claims that he was punished by administrators by being placed on academic probation and ordered to complete the 1995 spring semester from his Los Angeles home after his accuser came forward.
He insisted that he was studying remotely due to financial issues and explained that he planned to redshirt the team for a year.
He also denied the lawsuit’s allegations that university administrators protected him from further punishment because of his promising NFL career.
“Nobody took care of me like that,” Wiley said.
Partial view of Columbia University in New York, where Wiley attended from 1993 to 1997
“Isn’t it interesting that a female dean told another woman that what she said to her made no sense? …So the worst college program in America is risking everything for me?”
He accused the alleged victim of filing the lawsuit in hopes of seeking monetary gain and said he would file a countersuit for defamation.
Wiley was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 1997 and went on to have a decorated 10-year NFL career.
Eventually, the married father of four would become an ESPN and Fox Sports analyst before launching his own podcast. Meanwhile, his wife Annemarie is currently starring in the thirteenth season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Columbia University is named in the lawsuit, which accuses the school of negligence and reckless failure to protect its students from “sexual predators.”
A spokesperson for Columbia Athletics declined to comment to Mail Sport at this time.
The plaintiff’s lawsuit was filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allows plaintiffs to avoid the state’s statute of limitations. Prosecutors have been allowed to file such lawsuits over the past year, ending on Friday, when the law expires.