The Buffalo Bills fired punter Matt Araiza and two of his former San Diego State teammates two days after a civil lawsuit was filed accusing them of gang-raping a juvenile. They are all charged with rape and assault on a girl. The Buffalo Bills selected Matt Araiza in the NFL draft last April. The franchise has claimed that at the time of the draft they were unaware that Araiza was being looked into by authorities for a possible sexual assault off the field.
Araiza and two other San Diego State University athletes allegedly assaulted the 18-year-old victim for more than an hour during a party in October, according to the woman who made the accusation. She claimed that after the alleged assault, her phone was stolen, her piercings were torn out, and she was left bleeding.
What #MattAraiza is co-accused of is absolutely horrific. If he is found guilty (and we must let the judicial system decide this), his football career is the least of his concerns. pic.twitter.com/Dl4lpQGKQr
— Dan Clark (@DanClarkSports) August 28, 2022
“I was crying, and my friend asked me what happened,” the woman, who was 17 when the incident allegedly happened, stated. “And I told her, ‘I had just been raped.'” She wrote in her journal the next day: “All I keep replaying in my mind is being face down in a random bed just waiting for it to be over.”
“I was having to deal with this horrible traumatic experience that I never asked for,” she told the reporters. However, Kerry Armstrong, Araiza’s attorney, predicts that his client will be upheld. “I would be very surprised if they ever charged Matt Araiza with anything in this case,” Armstrong explicated further.
“If she really was raped in that back bedroom, that’s horrible. It’s a horrible thing to happen to anybody. But all I know is that Mr. Araiza had nothing to do with it, and the only thing I can think of as to why she’s included him in this civil lawsuit is because of money.”
When questioned about the charge that she intended to use Araiza as leverage to get money, the accuser said she was “sick to her stomach.” “I reported it the day after it happened. I was 17 years old and I had no idea who Matt Araiza was,” she said.
