ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – A football player from the University of New Mexico is now at the center of a police investigation after claims that he raped a female student and held her against her will.
That student told police it happened in a room at Lobo Village.
In a UNM police report, the alleged victim claims she went to Lobo Village to watch a movie with an ex-boyfriend, when things took a turn. KRQE News 13 is not naming him, since charges have not been filed.
According to the police report, the female student came forward last month, and told investigators it all started with text messages from her ex-boyfriend in February.
The 19-year-old said her ex invited her to his dorm at Lobo Village to watch a movie, and asked her for sex. The woman claims she told him she would not have sex with him, but she did agree to watch a movie at his place.
After the movie, she claims the 21-year-old football player grabbed her, and said, “Don’t fight it; I’m stronger than you are.”
The woman said her ex then proceeded to rape her, and held a pillow over her mouth when she tried to scream.
Then the next day, she said he sent her a text message that said “He was sorry for what he did and told her to not respond back,” according to the report.
When UNM police interviewed the suspect, investigators said he changed his story.
According to police, the Lobo football player first claimed he and his ex didn’t have sex that night.
It wasn’t until investigators confronted him with his own text messages, that police say he admitted to having sex with the 19-year-old that night, while she “repeated several times ‘no,’ and ‘stop.”
Even though the man told police he heard her tell him to stop several times, he also claimed the woman was kissing him, and that “Her actions of her kissing him kept him having sex with her.”
The case is currently being investigated as a rape and kidnapping. Once the case is complete, it’ll be sent to the District Attorney’s office.
The UNM Police Department and UNM Athletic Department could not comment for the story, pending the ongoing investigation.
The Department of Justice did their own investigation about how the University handles sexual assault cases, after getting a series of complaints from students.
Attention was drawn to the issue in a high profile case from 2014. Three men, two of them Lobo football players at the time, were accused of raping a freshman after a party.
Charges were later dropped in that case, after the District Attorney said there was not enough evidence to prosecute.