Prosecutors have declined to file charges against a Washington Wizards basketball player who had been accused of raping a woman at the Grand America Hotel in February.
A 3 1/2-month investigation by Salt Lake police and prosecutors ended Tuesday when authorities opted not to charge Wizards forward-center Jahidi White with the alleged Feb. 14 rape of a Salt Lake County woman.
"There was insufficient evidence to proceed with criminal charges," deputy district attorney Kent Morgan said. "It did not meet our standard of a reasonable likelihood of a conviction."
Investigators had interviewed White, 27, within the past couple weeks, but Morgan declined to discuss the contents of that meeting.
The victim also declined to comment on the case. The woman, 24, told police White raped her in the early morning hours before the Wizard's 109-77 loss to the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center the night of Feb. 14 — a game in which White did not play.
According to the woman's account of the incident, she passed out on White's hotel bed and awakened when "she felt her head hit the head board of the bed" and found the 6-foot-9-inch, 290-pound White "having intercourse with her," a Salt Lake City police report stated.
A message left at the office of White's Salt Lake attorney Ron Yengich was not returned Tuesday.
The woman told investigators she was with a group of friends when they met White and another Wizards player the evening of Feb. 13 at Southern Exposure, 5142 S. State, according to the police report. A friend of the victim who was with the woman's group at Southern Exposure said the players told the women they could meet NBA All-Star Michael Jordan if they accompanied them to the Manhattan Club.
While there, the victim remembered drinking one beer and three or four glasses of vodka. The woman told police she felt she'd been drugged because she started feeling dizzy and sick after White ordered her a final drink while she was in the bathroom.
Both Wizards players invited the woman and her female companions to an after-hours party at the hotel, where the players took the group up to White's hotel room, the report stated. After reaching White's room, the woman eventually passed out on a bed, then awoke to find White raping her, the report stated.
White ignored the woman's requests to stop, the report stated.
She eventually left the hotel room wearing a sweatshirt belonging to White. She also grabbed a luggage tag on one of White's suitcases as she left the room, the report stated.
Police later found a gold key in the woman's pants pocket, which belonged to the Grand America, the report stated.
When news of the alleged incident first broke, the Wizards released a statement saying the organization had spoken with White and believed the allegations were without merit.
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