The accounts that Gareon Conley has backed to form his public defense of alleged sexual assault have evolved.
Days after the Raiders made the former Ohio State star a first-round pick, his lawyer released a statement about the ongoing case stemming from an early morning April 9 incident in a Cleveland hotel. The lawyer told NFL Network that Conley and his accuser had a “consensual sexual event” that night —which Conley clarified by telling investigators that he received “brief oral sex,” which he insists was consensual, according to TMZ. The admittance appears to contradict the “nothing happened” witness testimony that Conley originally endorsed.
On Wednesday, the eve of the draft, the 21-year-old whose value was slipping released a statement asserting his innocence from a night in which his accuser said he had sex with her against her will. His declaration included support of witness testimony from that night, which the accuser said began with Conley asking her to have a foursome.
“There were several witnesses, including another female, who were present the entire time and have given statements that give an accurate account of what took place,” Conley said before Thurday’s first round. “We also have video evidence that further discredit [sic] and disprove [sic] other versions of these events.”
The witness statements, though, do not include any consensual sexual activity. Police spoke to two men who say they were in Conley’s room at the time: According to USA Today, one said Conley “never touched” the woman, saying the accuser “got mad because she got kicked out of the room.” The other witness said Conley and the accuser were “on the bed together, but nothing happened.”
In his statement, Conley countersigned these as facts, which seems to contradict his current “consensual sexual event” defense.
It now appears that something happened. According to Conley’s lawyer, he expects it to take between 6-8 weeks for the situation to be resolved.
Conley, a cornerback, was one of the top-rated players in the draft and ended up going No. 24.
“We did our due diligence throughout this whole process, and we trust our research, reports, everything we have on Mr. Conley,” Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the draft. “We feel really good about having him join the Raiders, and having him be a great teammate. The research was done.
“It wasn’t just a gut [feeling]. It was based on research, and we are very confident in all the information we got. I don’t want to get into all the details about who we talked to. The bottom line is, we’ve done miles and miles of research to make sure we were totally comfortable with our decision, which we were. We feel really good about the pick and where it’s going.”