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Buffalo Bills Punter Cut From Team After Being Accused Of Sexual Assault Was Somewhere Else During Alleged Incident, Investigators Say

   DailyWire.com
Matt Araiza #19 of the Buffalo Bills takes the field during practice on August 05, 2022 in Orchard Park, New York.
Joshua Bessex/Getty Images

Matt Araiza looked like he would have a promising NFL career after he was named the Buffalo Bills starting punter last August.

A San Diego State University (SDSU) graduate, Araiza’s talent earned him the nickname “Punt God.” But within days of landing the position, a woman filed a civil lawsuit claiming Araiza and two college football teammates gang-raped her when she was just 17.

San Diego police had investigated the woman’s claims for almost ten months but sent it to the district attorney without a recommendation for prosecution, Yahoo Sports reported. The Bills at the time also said they investigated the incident and employed Araiza anyway.

The civil lawsuit became public and, based on the allegations, media and the public vilified Araiza, taking the claims at face value. The Bills cut Araiza and his career is still in limbo even though prosecutors announced on December 7, 2022, following a 124-day investigation, that they wouldn’t charge anyone for the alleged gang rape.

Prosecutors, however, didn’t expand on their reasoning, which allowed many to continue assuming Araiza was guilty as he faced the lawsuit.

Now, a 200-plus page transcript of a nearly two-hour meeting obtained by Yahoo explains why prosecutors didn’t file charges. According to investigators, Araiza wasn’t even at the house when the incident is alleged to have occurred, and video evidence from the encounter casts doubt on the claim that the sex between the woman and the other men was not consensual.

In the transcript, the district attorney’s office explains to the woman and her attorneys why they aren’t prosecuting Araiza and his two college teammates. Prosecutors determined that Araiza left the house party where the rape was alleged to have occurred at 12:30 a.m., while timestamps place the incident at 1:30 a.m.

“He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” Deputy District Attorney Trisha Amador told the woman and her attorneys.

Amador also told the woman that recordings of the incident made it impossible to know if it was gang rape or consensual sex.

“In looking at the videos on the sex tape, I absolutely cannot prove any forceable sexual assault based upon what happened,” Amador told them.

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The accuser, who has not been named by media outlets because she claims to be a victim, maintains through her attorney that she was raped and that Araiza is one of her rapists. Her attorney, Dan Gilleon, said in a statement to Fox News that his client wouldn’t be “bullied” into dropping her civil lawsuit.

“It’s not going to happen. This case is going to trial, and we’ll force Araiza to talk,” Gilleon said.

Gilleon also told CBS8 that prosecutors determined that Araiza was somewhere else at the time of the alleged incident based on the word of a “buddy.” Prosecutors cited a witness and other information when determining Araiza had left the party.

The investigations by police and prosecutors, however, included more than 35 witness interviews, including the woman’s friends who were at the party, as well as a Sexual Assault Team exam, and ten search warrants that obtained four terabytes of information, including footage of the alleged incident.

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