The Buffalo Bills fired a punter they drafted last year after he was accused of raping a woman at a party.
But it turns out the punter wasn’t even at the party at the time of the incident and it wasn’t even rape, but rather consensual sex.
In other words nothing about this accusation was even true. But it destroyed the promising career of this punter that had not even begun.
Last August, the Bills cut punter Matt Arazia after a woman accused him of gang rape.
Evidence has now proven Arazia was not at the house when the woman alleges he raped her and that she was having consensual sex with several dudes that night.https://t.co/07jSYM519B
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 8, 2023
Here’s a little more on the story:
Last August, just days after earning the starting job as the Buffalo Bills’ punter, rookie Matt Araiza was the subject of a civil lawsuit alleging he and two San Diego State football teammates participated in a gang rape of an intoxicated 17-year-old girl.
While little was known publicly, San Diego Police had spent nearly 10 months on the case before forwarding it to the district attorney without a recommendation for prosecution. The Bills said they also knew about the incident, investigated it and decided to employ Araiza anyway.
The graphic allegations in the civil lawsuit, however, created a public frenzy. It included a claim that during an Oct. 15, 2021, party at a home near the SDSU campus, Araiza led the girl into a bedroom where “at least three other men” waited.
“Once inside, Araiza threw [the girl] onto the bed face first,” the lawsuit read. “[The girl] went in and in and out of consciousness while” suffering through “the horrific gang rape.” It lasted an hour and a half, the lawsuit read, before she “stumbled out of the room bloody and crying” in part because “multiple piercings had ripped through the skin during the attack.”
Within days the Bills cut Araiza, who due to his record breaking NCAA career and an 82-yard punt in a preseason game, had earned the nickname “Punt God.”
“We just think it’s the best move for everyone to move on from Matt and let him take care of this situation,” Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane said.
“He wasn’t even at the party anymore…”
Araiza remains out of football despite prosecutors announcing on Dec. 7, 2022, that after conducting their own 124-day investigation that they wouldn’t press any criminal charges in the case. However, few details, let alone their reasoning or additional exculpatory evidence, was included in the initial statement.
A fuller picture of what police and prosecutors found, however, is now available via a recently released 200-plus page transcript of a 100-minute meeting where a deputy district attorney offered a detailed explanation to the girl and her attorneys.
Perhaps most notably, the district attorney’s office concluded Araiza couldn’t have led the girl into the alleged gang rape because he had “left” the home at about 12:30 a.m., an hour prior to when evidence suggested the alleged gang rape would have occurred.
“He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained to the girl. Later Amador stated of the timeline of events, “All I know is that at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.”
The accuser’s attorney Dan Gilleon could not immediately be reached for comment.
Additionally, prosecutors told the girl that video recordings of the incident in the bedroom made it impossible to determine, let alone prosecute anyone, on whether there was a gang rape at all that night, rather than consensual sex with the other men.
“In looking at the videos on the sex tape, I absolutely cannot prove any forceable sexual assault based upon what happened,” Amador said.
So what happens to this girl who made these blatantly false accusations? Does anyone sue her? I sure hope so because she shouldn’t be allowed to get away with destroying a man’s career like this. She really should serve prison time for this.
As far as Araiza, I hope someone picks him up so he can move on from this. If he’s as good as they claim then I feel sure there are going to be plenty of teams knocking on his door. Good consistent kickers are sometimes hard to come by.