LOGAN — A Utah State University football player was charged Thursday with raping a woman who investigators say was too intoxicated to have given consent.
Jamaal Anthony Evans, 19, is charged in 1st District Court with rape and forcible sodomy, both first-degree felonies.
The incident is the latest in a series of sexual assault allegations involving USU students over the past few years.
A woman was at an off-campus party that started the night of June 17 and went into the early morning hours of June 18. The woman “stated she began drinking vodka” in the basement with a friend, according to a Cache County Jail report.
“The next thing she remembered was waking up in the shower when she struck her head on a metal rack that was hanging over the shower head. (She) stated she heard Jamaal ask her if she ‘was good,'” the report states.
Friends of the woman told investigators that prior to that, they watched as she and Evans went upstairs allegedly to get a drink, according to the report. But after some time, the friends became concerned when the woman did not return and began searching the house for her.
A female friend found the woman’s phone under a pool table, the report states. She then sent text messages to Evans.
“Evans would not tell her where he and (the woman) were but would only tell her to ‘hold up’ and ‘we good,'” the report states.
The friend heard a shower in an upstairs bedroom turn on and went to investigate. They found vomit on the bed, floor and Evans’ shirt, according to police. But when they tried to get into the bathroom, it was locked.
“Evans was telling her to give him a minute and she began yelling for (the woman) who was not responding to her,” the report states. “Evans told her through the door that she did not need to be there and that they were OK.”
But when the friend was finally able to get into the bathroom, she found the woman “completely nude” and “hunched over and … completely incoherent,” according to the report.
“(The woman) began tearing up and telling her she did not know what was happening.”
When confronted about what had happened, Evans “described what occurred as ‘when you’re in the moment and you want what you want, you just got to do it sometimes,'” investigators wrote in the report. He allegedly stated that the woman was sober and “he gave that girl what she wanted.”
A couple of days after the party, the woman called Evans while a police detective recorded the conversation.
“During the phone call, (the woman) tells Evans that she could not remember almost anything from the night in question. Evans seemed surprised that (she) could not even remember the bedroom they were in. (The woman) states to Evans, ‘Obviously I was not sober,’ to which Evans replied, ‘Yeah I know but I was in the same place you are,'” the report states. “Throughout the call, Evans tried to tell (the woman) that he believed she was not drunk during their encounter and that she showed no signs of impairment.
“(The woman) accuses Evans of rape, to which he responds that she needs to trust him because he is the only person who was there and knows what happened,” the report states.
In a recorded conversation with the friend, Evans claimed he was drunk and high, according to the report. But when interviewed by police, Evans denied being intoxicated.
“Evans stated, ‘Was I drunk? Honestly no. Well not like out of my mind but I’m like a little buzzed because I don’t drink a lot,'” according to the report.
Investigators also interviewed the other people who were at the party. All of them concurred that the woman was intoxicated, but they did not believe Evans was, police wrote.
The other men at the party “agreed not to interact with the girls sexually in any way because they were obviously intoxicated and you can get into trouble for that,” the report states.
Evans is listed as a freshman linebacker on the USU Aggie 2018 football roster who is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds. He is originally from Las Vegas where he was a first team, all-state quarterback.
A call for comment from the USU Athletic Department was not returned Thursday.
The incident is the latest in several rape and sexual misconduct allegations levied against Utah State students.
In April, USU announced that Stacy Sturgeon was removed from her position as Title IX coordinator in response to an investigation that found gender discrimination and sexual misconduct went unchecked for years in the school’s music department.
In 2017, Scott Raymond Simmons was charged with rape and forcible sexual abuse for allegedly raping a classmate on the campus lawn. He is scheduled to go to trial in August.
Former USU football star Torrey Green currently faces rape charges in several cases for allegedly assaulting up to seven women.
In 2015, a former fraternity president at the school, Ryan Wray, pleaded guilty to a reduced felony charge of trying to sexually assault a woman while tasked with assisting inebriated women at a party.
The following year, former student Jason Relopez also pleaded guilty to reduced charges after police said he sexually assaulted two female USU students at his fraternity.
Utah State created a task force to address sexual violence in 2016.