The Defense of Jameis Winston

After revisiting over 200 pages of legal documents and police reports, here’s a look at what Jameis Winston’s defense might look like.

The sexual assault allegations facing Jameis Winston have become one of the most polarizing issues in all of sports. Many around the country have already convicted Winston. It doesn’t matter what evidence surfaces or how future investigations go, in their minds Winston raped a girl. He will always be guilty of that.

Others have been made skeptical by the rash of other incidents surrounding Winston. Perhaps the greatest disservice that Winston has done to his own defense in the months since the incident in question was acting like a dumb college kid. Allegations of stealing soda in ketchup cups, incidents with BB guns, walking out of Publix without paying for crab legs– nothing to get too riled up about on its own, but a big deal if you’ve ever been accused of rape.

Now, as a result, a major part of the national narrative has already been written with Winston portraying the villain. It’s easier to sell it to those with only a casual knowledge or interest in regard to what really happened if Winston is cast as a cross between Eddie Haskell and a sexual deviant while FSU — and to some extent the city of Tallahassee — are made out to be some southern old boys club with a win-at-all-costs attitude. The story tells better when it’s some sweet innocent girl who gets chewed up and spit out by an unethical, out of control athletic program with no regard for anyone or anything but football.

It’s more salacious that way, more scandalous– who wouldn’t want to read that?

Well, not Jimbo Fisher, for one:

“I know the facts of the case. The facts haven’t changed in the case. We know the reports, we know everything that’s out there. There’s nothing new that’s been out there. We’ve been through this,” said Fisher at a press conference a few months ago as he defended Jameis Winston’s innocence.

“There is no victim because there was no crime. We’re convicting a guy over things that are not true based on [existing] evidence.”

Fisher — like a small group close to Winston, with close knowledge of the case — has never wavered from his belief in Winston and Winston’s innocence.

“The facts of the case– read the report, read what’s there — the facts are the facts. That’s what they are,” said Fisher. “And when I see stories written that don’t have all the facts– that paint them towards their side of public opinion– this country is based on being innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent.”

On December 2nd at Florida State’s Student Conduct hearing, Winston — aided by attorney David Cornwell — will have a chance to make a case for his innocence. We’ve analyzed all of the available reports — all the police work, the report from the State Attorney’s office, the witness accounts, hundreds of messages and the statements of both sets of attorneys — this is what Jameis Winston’s defense might look like:

Establishing a Timeline

On the night of December 6th, 2012, per Jameis Winston’s accuser, she was drinking with friends at a Tallahassee bar named Pot-Belly’s. The accuser, along with her friend Monique Kessler, were sharing drinks with a third friend, Marcus Jordan. All three were underaged, but Jordan was able to obtain drinks via a fake ID (note: it appears Jordan was caught with said ID 8/29/13).

At some point in the evening, per the accuser, she becomes separated from her friends and begins interacting “mostly with Marcus’ friends.” After an unknown individual offers the accuser a shot, she texts Kessler about her ID and keys before, “the next thing I know I’m in the back of a taxi with a random guy I have never met.”

After continuing to an apartment complex that was later determined to be Legacy Suites, the accuser found herself in a bedroom, being undressed by an unknown assailant despite the fact she “kept telling him to stop.” After the assailant’s dreadlocked roommate came in to ask that he stop, the accuser says the assailant moved her into the bathroom “because the door locked.”

After the assault, the assailant dressed the accuser and drove her to the intersection of Call Street and Stadium Street where he dropped her off.

At approximately 3:23 AM on December 7th, the Tallahassee police was dispatched. The accuser was then transported to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital where she told officers she had been held down by her arms and raped.

On January 10, 2013 the accuser called the TPD and reported that her assailant was Jameis Winston after spotting him in a class the two shared.

On January 11th, Patricia Carroll contacted the TPD and advised Scott Angulo that she was the accuser’s “aunt and is also an attorney.” She asked that all communication go through her from that point on.

On Feburary 18, 2013 — after following up on all leads and attempting to interview all witnesses — the case was suspended due to “lack of cooperation from the victim.”

You can read the entire TPD File Right Here.

Police Timeline

When the police became involved on the morning of December 7th, they were responding to a much different situation as a result of the early information the agency received.

We don’t have audio of the police call made by the accuser’s friend, Jenna Weisberg, but we do have the notes from the dispatcher.

"03:25:34 12/07/2012 – L VarnerVIC ADV THAT SHE WAS HIT IN THE HEAD"

That account, that the accuser was “at a party and she was leaving and some dude hit her on the head and when she woke up he was on top of her rapping [sic] her” was also the version of events related to Brianna Henry — a high school friend of the accuser from Zephyrhills — at 2:48 AM on the morning of the 7th.

It was that interaction that led Henry to seek out Kristen Cabot Brady, a cheerleading coach and mutual acquaintance of the two. Henry messaged with Brady starting at 2:59 AM on the morning of the 7th and it was Brady, at Henry’s request, that contacted the accuser’s mother just before 3:15 AM.

According to the accuser’s call records, she received a call from home at exactly 3:15.

At 3:23, seven minutes after Brady confirms to Henry that she has spoken to the accuser’s mother and eight minutes after the accuser receives a call from home, Weisberg — who arrived at the accuser’s dorm during that time — calls the police. The accuser is then transported to TMH where first contact with TPD detectives occurs. She tells a detective, at this point, that after several drinks she was separated from her friends and “the next thing she knew she was in a taxi with several males.” After a brief interview, the detective agrees to resume the next day on account of her fatigue.

Later that day, after arriving at the Tallahassee Police Department at 3:45, the accuser gives the following statement.

Early Contradictions

The very first thing worth noting when looking at the early contradictions in the accuser’s narrative are the dramatically different versions given at the outset. After arriving home, the accuser allegedly tweeted that she needed someone to talk to (she later deleted all of her social media accounts, making this difficult to verify). Weisberg and Henry both responded and were both told that the accuser had been struck in the head and forcibly raped.

By the time police were interviewing her, the accuser’s story had changed to a less violent version where she unwittingly found herself in a taxi with three strangers heading to an unknown apartment complex.

The level of her resistance also changed from physical resistance in the account’s first iteration to “she told him to stop but she wasn’t yelling or anything because she felt sick” at her interview the next day. The accuser initially told detectives her assailant violently restrained her. Then it changed to she just laid there.

The changing story — by itself, on its face — isn’t as noteworthy until contrasted with other evidence.

One thing is beyond certain, the first version of events as told to Henry and Weisberg did not happen. There is absolutely no physical evidence to support that she was struck in the head, nor to support that she was held down.

But things escalated considerably when the accuser’s parents were notified.

Despite the fact both Henry and Weisberg stated the accuser didn’t want her parents to become involved, Brady’s contact with the accuser’s family was followed by a phone call from the accuser’s home to the accuser less than a minute later (3:15). Seven minutes later the police are formally contacted and the accuser’s family was getting on the road to drive to Tallahassee.

Regardless of one’s belief in the veracity of the accusations made against Jameis Winston, it was the intervention of the accuser’s parents (who were contacted under false pretenses) that was the impetus for escalating the situation and involving the police.

How Did She Leave Pot Belly’s?

This sounds like a relatively innocuous question, but there’s a lot tied up in just how the accuser left Pot Belly’s and arrived at Legacy Suites. What’s known for sure is that she rode in a taxi from the bar to the apartment complex. But the accuser’s level of intoxication and her conduct in the moments leading up to her departure are still open to a lot of interpretation.

One constant undertone in the accuser’s story has been that she would have never been at the assailant’s apartment if she were of sound mind.

In its earliest iteration that was explained away by a blow to the head. Once police and medical personnel were involved, it became an issue of what state attorney Willie Meggs characterized as “memory lapses.” There was a mysterious bartender who rescued the accuser from a shorter “Indian” looking guy and bought her a shot. There were the five or six drinks she shared with a friend. There were the implications made by her attorney in press statements that she was drugged.

That was not corroborated by the toxicology reports.

The blood and urinalysis came back with no traces of drugs and a blood alcohol level of .048.

While the accuser’s counsel tried to pivot from this after it became public knowledge, the change of strategy still doesn’t answer the question of how the accuser got to Legacy Suites — the site of her alleged rape — if she was neither violently coerced, drugged or intoxicated beyond having control of her faculties.

Her friend Monique Kessler, in her interview with the State Attorney, had a slightly different recollection. In sharp contrast to the accuser’s statements about being separated from friends and somehow ending up in a cab with Chris Casher, Ronald Darby and Winston. Kessler told investigator Erika Buckley the accuser had been speaking to one of the three men earlier in the evening and even gave him her number. Kessler and the accuser then continued to drink together, “but never got to a level where she felt they were intoxicated.” Later in the evening, the accuser showed Kessler a text message from an unknown number asking her to come outside.

"“[Redacted] looked at Monique and asked “should I go?” Monique replied “you can go” and “within a few seconds” [redacted] was gone."

In the cab, the accuser is also alleged to have tried to invite another girl over to the apartment for Casher, Winston’s roommate. The accuser admitted to texting Kessler about her ID and money– but she also deleted two attempts to call Kessler from her phone’s call log before turning it over to police.

That was only a small portion of the information deleted from the accuser’s phone and social media records. That there seemed to be a concerted effort on the part of the accuser to delete certain messages and social media postings is particularly troubling to Winston’s attorney, David Cornwell.

"Ms. [redacted] may have already destroyed potentially exculpatory evidence when she apparently deleted or altered information from social media site(s) relating to her alleged association with a group of women who called themselves “Cleat Chasers.” These young women used the twitter handle #FSUCleatChasers to refer to themselves on social media. Mr. Winston is entitled to know if, as informed by a source, this group was focused on seeking the sexual attention of cleat wearing FSU football players, particularly African American FSU football players."

That last bit, about the cleat chasers, could be little more than a media strategy on the part of Winston’s defense team. In our research — over the hundreds of available pages of documentation — there was just one interaction between the accuser and the now defunct, @FSUCleatChasers handle.

The more salient point underlying Cornwell’s statement is that the accuser’s decision to delete certain items from her phone — her calls to Kessler and the text message she received at the bar asking her to come outside — raise questions of their own.

Regardless, all of this lends itself to the interpretation that the accuser was of sound mind, and left Pot Belly’s for Legacy Suites of her own volition– not against her will as previously claimed.

The Third Account

The third account of that evening — the one that has been given the least credibility — is also the most plausible given the physical and circumstantial evidence.

That is the corroborated account of Winston and his teammates, Chris Casher and Ronald Darby.

That account, summarized here in the TPD police report, is as follows:

"1. Winston, Casher and Darby went to Potbelly’s and arrived around 11 :00 pm. While at the bar, a blonde female began speaking with Winston.2. As Winston, Casher and Darby left, the blonde female got into the cab with them (according to Casher, she invited herself). The statements indicated the female was not intoxicated and was able to carry on a conversation.3. When they arrived at their apartment, the female followed Winston into his bedroom.4. The door was pulled closed but was partially open because it was broken.5. Casher and Darby watched as the female performed oral sex on Winston through Winston’s broken bedroom door. They then saw the female and Winston engage in oral sex. As a joke Casher went into the room. In response the female told him to get out. She then got up and closed the door and turned off the lights. According to the statements, there were no indications that the female was not a willing participant.6. Approximately 20 minutes later the female left with Winston on his scooter."

Where this story starts to become corroborated by evidence — and where the accuser’s statements begin to come into question — are when compared against the medical results that came from her examination on the morning of 12/7/12.

"“The Sexual Assault Nurse notes some redness on [redacted] knees and the top of her left foot. She also noted brown bruises on [redacted] left knee and on her right elbow.”"

A bruise typically takes 10-14 days to turn brown (per the NCJRS), so it’s unlikely the bruising on the accuser’s left knee and right elbow were as a result of the alleged attack given that the examination took place just a few hours afterward.

What would be related to the alleged incident would be the redness on the knees and the top of her left foot. However those injuries are not consistent with the accuser’s version of events. Rather, redness on the knees and the top of the left foot could be indicative of performing oral sex with the accuser on her knees in front of Winston– as Casher and Darby both allege happened.

The accuser, however, told police there had been no oral sex performed on her, nor was she compelled to perform it on someone else against her will. In her version of events she was held down by her arms while her alleged 240-pound assailant was on top of her.

The injuries shown by the victim at the time of the exam do not support this description of events.

The Second Set of DNA

The existence of a second set of DNA in a pair of pink shorts taken from the accuser is, by itself, only tangentially relevant. But some of the circumstantial questions it raises — more specifically, that its role in the investigation played — may serve to highlight some of the motivations and sentiments of the accuser and her family.

Though he is admittedly biased, Winston’s attorney broached the subject in a letter to Florida State University:

"Despite the ongoing criminal investigation, Ms. Carroll had what she considered to be the most compelling evidence of rape: she reportedly stated that the sex could not have been consensual because Ms. [redacted] would never sleep with a “black boy.” Presumably, Ms. Carroll was unaware that Ms. [redacted]’s boyfriend at the time was also African American… Ms. Carroll concealed that [redacted] refused to identify and was reluctant to discuss her African American boyfriend with TPD and State Attorney investigators. She also concealed that Ms. [redacted]’s African American boyfriend refused to cooperate with investigators. Ms. Carroll concealed that law enforcement investigators had to force Ms.[redacted]’s boyfriend to provide a DNA sample. Beyond the impact on her initial outburst that Ms. would not have sex with a “black boy,” this information may have been concealed because there is evidentiary significance to the fact that a man did not cooperate with a criminal investigation into his girlfriend’s alleged rape."

The accuser’s Colorado-based attorneys — the ones she upgraded to this past Spring — rebutted most of what was in Cornwell’s letter, but never denied the Atlanta-based attorney’s claims that Carroll (who initially represented the accuser) made the alleged “black boy” statements.

Ignoring the racial implications of those statements, there’s also a level of dishonesty on the part of the accuser inherent in these statements as well. Beyond just being the accuser’s attorney, Patricia Carroll also states upon her initial contact with Det. Angulo that she is also the accuser’s aunt— she’s family. Were this to go in front of a judge, that revelation — that the accuser was not even initially honest with her own attorney, even ignoring their familial relationship — would cast serious doubts on the reliability of anything else the accuser said.

It also highlights what can now be considered a pattern. Before, the decision on the part of the accuser to conceal and withhold information can, at least to some degree, be excused simply as a young girl scared of getting into trouble. At the point that dishonesty extends to her own attorney — and family, as well — it starts to look like a trend.

It begins to look as though she isn’t being completely honest with anyone.

Even when confronted by the State Attorney’s investigators, the accuser was unwilling to cooperate when it came to providing further information on the other set of DNA.

The second set of DNA belonged to Jamal Roberts, a wide receiver at Kent State University who was the accuser’s boyfriend at the time. A call to Roberts on the night of the incident was also deleted from the accuser’s phone.

Misrepresentations on the Part of the Accuser’s Counsel

The possibility exists that Patricia Carroll believed the accuser’s account so blindly that she made some of her early statements in earnest– she actually believed they were true. But the complainant’s attorneys have done everything from accusing law enforcement of testing the wrong blood to tampering with their own witnesses as this investigation has played out.

At the center of the accuser’s media strategy is the unchallenged idea that the investigation was botched. And surely, there were times when law enforcement in Tallahassee could have been more professional and efficient.

But just for a second, look at it from the perspective of police. The initial call received was for a violent rape where the victim had been bludgeoned over the head at a party and woke up with a large black man on top of her. Upon arriving the story changed dramatically to where the victim had now become extremely intoxicated and couldn’t recall how she got to the place of her attack or met her attacker. That is then contradicted by the account of her friend — who says she exchanged numbers with one of the guys at the bar and then showed her his text before leaving — and the toxicology reports, which show no drugs and only moderate intoxication.

She then breaks off contact for a month before accusing a football player who was in line to be the school’s starting QB next season.

Now try to re-contextualize the statements of Det. Angulo when he asked the accuser if she was sure she wanted to do this and warned her it could make her life hell.

If you’re that detective, in light of all the information in front of you, would you be a little skeptical of such a major allegation?

From there the accuser’s representation continued to discredit the investigation by implying the bloodwork may be unreliable and that the lack of timeliness in the investigation allowed Winston’s attorney to coach witnesses. The bloodwork was retested in Gainesville — at the expense of the taxpayer — and returned the same results.

As for witness tampering, the State Attorney’s investigation found more on the part of the accuser’s attorneys than Winston’s own.

At one point when attempting to interview Monique Kessler, the state attorney calls and is informed that the interview cannot proceed on that date due to a scheduling conflict. The investigator later finds out Kessler delayed the interview to consult with the accuser’s attorney first. When attempting to interview Marcus Jordan, he states directly to the investigator that he must first consult with the accuser’s attorney before speaking with him. The investigator then informs Jordan that is not how things work.

Both instances demonstrate, with a high likelihood, that the accuser’s representation coached her witnesses ahead of time — likely to get stories straight, the same thing the complainant’s attorneys accuse Winston’s of doing — and advised them to contact her again before speaking to investigators.

This is similar to the accuser’s attorneys openly discussing what is supposed to be a confidential Title IX hearing and then faulting Cornwell for responding. Neither set of attorneys was supposed to discuss — in any capacity — the hearing that will take place at FSU today.

Both have– only one side is vilified for it.

That’s the same logic that faults Winston for hiring an attorney in the first place — uses it as evidence of guilt — while excusing the fact that the accuser replaced her own aunt with two high-priced, high-profile out-of-state attorneys. The idea that simply “lawyering up” is a sign of guilt is absurd. Anyone facing these kinds of allegations who doesn’t seek out representation is an idiot. But because of the strategy of the accuser’s representation, even the media — Bob Ley at ESPN chief among them — have implied Winston may be guilty simply because he’s letting a lawyer defend him.

The same level of misrepresentation is also true in regard to the timeline of events. It’s documented in the TPD’s report as well as that of the state attorney and a release by Florida State itself that the accuser broke off contact at several points and waited 20 months before filing a Title IX claim.

That’s not up for debate. Within the context of this case it’s well established that one of the biggest reasons for the delays was on the part of the accuser’s team. Yet the ongoing narrative surrounding the case — one perpetuated by the accuser’s side — is that FSU and Winston’s team have been the reason nothing was done in a more timely manner.

This has become almost an established fact and it futher illustrates how the accuser’s team has played upon misperception to drive their narrative.

That’s why — despite having changed dramatically over the course of this investigation — many still take the accuser’s account at face. Winston’s account has never changed — he’s stuck to the same story since the allegations first surfaced — but despite any evidence that may support his account, many have chosen not to believe him (or his teammates) since the outset.

Conclusion

If you’re not inclined to believe Winston is innocent– you’re likely not going to try to look at his side of the evidence. And that’s been the case since these allegations surfaced. Many people — fairly or unfairly — decided from the get-go that he did this and that was that. Some people, even in light of new evidence, are never going to believe anyone other than the accuser.

But if you’re inclined to actually sift through the evidence and try to consider everything with an open mind– it becomes a little harder to take these allegations on their face.

Nobody — neither Winston nor his accuser — denies that something happened that night.

But this is a serious allegation, and outside of the account of the accuser herself — one that has morphed substantially in the last two years — there’s not a whole lot that corroborates the narrative that Jameis Winston coerced a young woman to his apartment, forcibly held her down and raped her.

The toxicology reports don’t support the idea that she was too intoxicated or was drugged. Her own friends don’t support the narrative that she had no idea who these people were. The phone she turned over to police had been altered, calls and texts, as well as social media entries from that night had been deleted. Her physical examination does more to corroborate Winston, Casher and Darby’s accounts of the sexual interaction than her own. She initially told friends she had been hit over the head, which is what led to her parents becoming involved (under false pretenses) and to the escalation of this whole incident to where police became involved in the first place– that turned out to be false.

The point here isn’t to speculate on the motivations of Jameis Winston’s accuser. That is a slippery slope hardly worth sliding down.

More from Chop Chat

The point is to illustrate that all of this information — the results of a TPD investigation, followed by the State Attorney’s investigation — found insufficient evidence to move forward with a legal case. And despite the protestations of the accuser’s counsel, that was based on contradicting evidence and actual investigative work– not bias for a Florida State football player.

It’s easy to sit there and claim that this is all a big cover-up. It’s a good media strategy to do that.

But read the actual evidence.

The only consistent portion of the accuser’s narrative from the outset of this case has been that she alleges Jameis Winston raped her.

How that actually happened? That’s continued to evolve– even in spite of actual evidence.

You can read all of the information related to this case yourself, right here:

TPD Report
State Attorney’s Report
Investigative Materials (pt. 1)
Investigative Materials (pt. 2)
David Cornwell Letter

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