A Hosftra University football player was freed on bail yesterday after being charged with raping a fellow student on the Long Island campus.
Peter Martocci, a 19-year-old sophomore, was arrested Sunday after an 18-year-old woman told cops he raped her on a sports field early that day.
Martocci and his accuser had been at a sports bar on Hempstead Turnpike Saturday night, said Sgt. Richard Zito of the Nassau County Special Victims Squad.
The woman left around 1:20 a.m. with two friends.
Martocci ran after them and walked with them to the campus.
The woman’s friends headed toward their dorm, leaving Martocci and the woman to walk toward their dorms in the other direction.
Martocci invited the woman to his room, telling her there was no one else there, but when she declined, he threw her to the ground and raped her, Zito said.
The woman suffered “internal injuries” as a result of the rape, Zito said.
Martocci, an offensive lineman on an athletic scholarship, was suspended pending the outcome of his case, Hofstra officials said.
His lawyer, Bruce Eiber, said he believes Martocci will be “fully exonerated.”
“He’s a very clean-cut young man, nonviolent,” Eiber said. He’s just a great young man.”
Martocci was hit with first-degree rape and sodomy charges, and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.