A former Bethel University football player is accused of sexually assaulting three students enrolled at the Christian college in 2018.
The women reported the incidents to police in recent months, leading authorities to charge Gideon Osamwonyi Erhabor, 21, via warrant with three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, according to charges filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.
Erhabor was listed as a running back on Bethel’s football team in 2018. He was not on the 2019 roster. Bethel spokesman Michael Vedders confirmed that Erhabor was a student at the Arden Hills school from the fall of 2017 to fall 2018. Vedders said the university was unaware of any criminal complaint against Erhabor and was unable to comment on the matter.
“Bethel University is saddened and concerned when any sexual assault is reported and is committed to cooperating with law enforcement,” he said.
Erhabor, who was arrested and jailed Wednesday in Collin County, Texas, was unable to be reached.
The allegations date back to the fall and winter of 2018.
In one instance, a now-22-year-old woman who was attending the college at the time told police she ran into Erhabor at a house party on the 5000 block of Lexington Avenue North in December of that year, according to the charges.
She brought one hard seltzer alcoholic drink with her to the gathering and remembers walking around and socializing for about half an hour, before blacking out, according to the charges.
She woke up the next morning groggy and confused with pain in her vaginal area and bruising on her legs, the complaint said.
Her friends told her that she disappeared for a short time at the party and that when she reappeared she was “highly intoxicated,” according to the charges.
In the few flashbacks she could recall from that evening, the woman remembered Erhabor “hanging around her” before she blacked out, and telling him she wasn’t interested in having sex with him at the time, according to the charges.
She used Snapchat to contact Erhabor to help fill in the gaps in her memory, specifically asking if anything had happened between the two of them at the party and if she needed to be concerned about pregnancy, according to the charges.
Erhabor responded, “I used a condom. You’re fine,” the complaint said.
The woman told her residence hall adviser about the incident, but reportedly felt too ashamed to report it to police until several months later, when she learned that another university student had experienced something similar with Erhabor, according to the charges.
In that case, a woman reported being sexually assaulted by Erhabor at a house party in Roseville in November 2018, according to the charges.
She told police she recalled having two alcohol drinks that night before blacking out and waking up at her friend’s house without any underwear on or memory of the previous evening, the complaint said.
A couple weeks later, Erhabor reportedly showed up at her dorm room uninvited and climbed into her bed, according to the charges.
He started trying to engage in sexual activity with the woman, but the woman told him no, the complaint said.
Erhabor reportedly asked her why she was refusing, considering the two had already had sex with each other.
Confused, the woman asked him to explain, and Erhabor told her they had sex in a bathroom the night she blacked out at the house party, according to the charges.
He also told the woman that it seemed like she didn’t like it at the time because she fell asleep during the encounter, the complaint said.
In the third incident, a Bethel student reported that Erhabor had invited her to his dorm room in September 2018 to watch a movie.
Shortly after she arrived, she said Erhabor started kissing and groping her, according to the complaint. While she said she was OK with kissing, the woman said she told Erhabor she wasn’t interested in having sex with him.
Erhabor continued his sexual advances anyway, she reported, and eventually raped the woman, the complaint said.
Deputies with the Ramsey County sheriff’s office interviewed Erhabor about the incidents in his hometown of McKinney, Texas, in September.
While he acknowledged having sex with the three women, he said all the interactions were consensual, the complaint said.
No attorney was listed for Erhabor in court records.
He has no other criminal record in Minnesota.