SALT LAKE CITY — A third victim of former Utah State University football player Torrey Green has sued the college, alleging it tolerated sexual assault and failed to provide her meaningful help after she reported Green raped her.
The woman agreed to meet Green for ice cream and later went to his apartment, where he raped her on August 1, 2015. By that point, the football standout had assaulted five other women, three of whom reported the crimes to the university.
Yet “at no point did Utah State actively investigate Green and the accusations made against him,” according to the suit filed Friday in federal court.
Now 26 years old, Green is serving a sentence of at least 26 years in the Utah State Prison after a jury found him guilty of five counts of rape, a first-degree felony, and one charge of sexual battery, a class A misdemeanor.
One of those convictions stems from the report from the woman now suing the school. She testified at trial that she rebuffed his advances while they watched a movie at his apartment, but he forced himself on her.
She reported the assault to the university in October 2016, but she says the school failed to provide meaningful access to services required under Title IX, the federal law protecting students from sex-based discrimination. The Deseret News typically does not identify victims of sex crimes.
The lack of help from the school led her to forfeit her full scholarship there and transfer to another college, where she took out student loans and could no longer pursue one of her chosen majors because it wasn’t offered, her attorneys contend in court documents.
Last month, two other women Green is convicted of raping sued the university in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. They also allege the university failed to investigate several other reports of sexual assault against Green and fostered an environment that tolerated misconduct.
In response to the new suit and the earlier civil case, the school noted it has overhauled how it handles reports of sexual misconduct and said the legal complaints rely on incorrect information.
“Torrey Green had many victims both at USU and in the community, and the university would like to assist USU students who were victims to reach closure,” university spokesman Tim Vitale said in a statement. “USU has publicly acknowledged it fell short in several ways in addressing sexual assaults on campus in the Torrey Green case, and we are continuing to address those universitywide systemic problems.”
“This lawsuit, however, as filed, relies on countless incorrect assumptions, misrepresents how universities are able to address sexual assaults, and contains a number of outright factual errors and multiple timeline errors,” Vitale continued.
The new lawsuit contends USU’s history of tolerating misconduct predates Green’s convictions.
Two other former students faced charges in the criminal justice system for sexually assaulting women, yet the school failed to take appropriate measures in the wake of those assaults to prevent similar occurrences in the future, it contends.
Ryan Wray, a former president of a fraternity at the school, was sentenced to jail time in 2015 after he admitted to sexually assaulting a woman at a party. The following year, former USU student and fraternity brother Jason Relopez, who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two women, was sentenced to one year in jail.
The new suit does not name specific administrators but lists 10 unnamed defendants identified as Jane and John Does.
It accuses them of “actively facilitating a known sexual predator’s presence on the university campus in Logan, Utah, and implicitly endorsing the behavior of a known sexual predator by failing to punish and affirmatively renewing his scholarship.”
The woman seeks damages to be determined at trial, noting she has incurred medical expenses due to the assault and it has interfered with her education.
Green, originally from Rubidoux, California, graduated from USU in 2016 and attended a training camp with the Atlanta Falcons the same year. His NFL prospects were dashed when allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced and he was cut from the team.
He now faces a separate, remaining rape allegation stemming from his time at the school. A trial has been scheduled to begin in that case in February.