King County prosecutors have charged an 18-year-old Seattle high school student with the rape of a classmate outside a house party in November.

Jackson Sullivan, who played for West Seattle High School’s baseball team, was arrested on investigation of second-degree rape charges late last month. He posted a $350,000 bail. He is scheduled for arraignment June 4. (Court documents show the timeline was delayed because of the coronavirus.)

Interviews with several witnesses and classmates, detailed in charging documents, allege Sullivan has what the police described as other “alarming” sexual assault accusations. The police investigation into Sullivan is still ongoing, and could result in more charges, the document stated; so far, according to the documents, three other young women have accused Sullivan of nonconsensual sexual contact.

The 16-year-old who reported she was assaulted in November now has court-ordered protection from Sullivan.

The Seattle Times could not reach Sullivan. His mother declined to comment on the allegations.

The initial investigation that led to his charges was lengthy. More than five months passed between when the assault was reported and his arrest on April 29.

“The process of interviewing everyone and witnesses (for a rape case) can take awhile,” said SPD Detective Patrick Michaud, who was not aware of the case when called, but spoke in general terms last week. 

The King County Prosecutor’s Office “did a careful review of the totality of evidence” in the police investigation and determined it was worth charging Sullivan, said Casey McNerthney, a spokesman for the office.

Police documents reveal details from that evening and other alleged assaults.

The 16-year-old girl was also a West Seattle High student. She said she’d been playing beer pong inside the November house party just before the assault, according to the documents. She’d had two drinks, she told police, but began to feel like she was blacking out after Sullivan handed her a third drink, which led her to suspect she might have been drugged.

She said her next memory is of the rape. After launching a “massive” search for her, friends found her in the van with the suspect, which was parked a short distance from the house, the documents said. They told police she was nonverbal, partially clothed and covered in her own vomit.

When they confronted Sullivan, the documents reported he said, “I thought she was good for it.” The documents stated a Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory test determined Sullivan’s DNA was present on the teen’s underwear and vaginal swabs.

As officers investigated the November incident, they learned of other alleged incidents of assaults, according to the charging documents.

Two were from Halloween night 2017. One girl said Sullivan sat next to her, draped a blanket over her legs, and penetrated her with his fingers while others were present. Another young woman, who fell asleep next to Sullivan at a different party, said she awoke to him doing the same thing.

At a party following a school dance in March 2019, another girl, who said she was intoxicated at the time, said Sullivan made advances despite her protests, and penetrated her with his fingers while they were both in his car.

A spokesman for Seattle Public Schools declined to comment on whether Sullivan was still enrolled at the district.

Throughout Eastside Catholic School’s state championship playoff run last season, three prominent football players were under police investigation for a late-August parking-lot brawl in Sammamish that sent one teenager to a hospital and injured two others.

Police and prosecutorial records obtained by The Seattle Times indicate several videos were made of the fight outside a local supermarket, which generated five 911 calls and was witnessed by dozens of people. King County Sheriff’s Office deputies investigated from mid-October through January and recommended two players be charged with second-degree felony assault and another with misdemeanor assault, stating the athletes had “premeditated” the exchange and “ganged up on” the smaller, outnumbered alleged victims.

The King County Prosecutor’s Office declined in February to charge anyone, and Issaquah prosecutors on March 13 dropped a charge of misdemeanor assault filed against one player, now 19, who was adult at the time. Both agencies cited conflicting information and uncertainty over whether the altercation constituted “mutual combat.”

King County prosecutor Michelle Larson, in declining felony charges, noted that, because one accused player turned 18 during a seven-week delay before police opened their investigation, he’d potentially been unfairly denied his right to be processed through the juvenile system.

The cases originated less than a year after King County prosecutors declined charges against four different Eastside Catholic players who were investigated for sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in April 2018.

The three Eastside Catholic players involved in the fight kept playing throughout the latest investigation, which began with two games remaining in the 2019 regular season and continued through the team’s 3A championship win over O’Dea High School.

In a statement, Eastside Catholic administrators said they were not aware of details of the brawl until now, and that the behavior “is not acceptable or aligned with our values.” The incident occurred just before the school year.

“We are deeply dismayed and concerned, both by the behavior itself and that this information is only now coming to light,” the statement reads.

“It is clear that our communications processes have failed and that we need to take a hard look at why we were not aware of this sooner.”

The Seattle Times generally does not publish the names of suspects that aren’t charged. The 19-year-old’s name appears in some files but is not published because the criminal charge against him was dropped. The names of the other juvenile suspects were redacted from records.

On the night of Aug 24, a group of up to 75 teens from various schools had gathered at the Sammamish grocery store lot when the brawl broke out between some older teens and a group that one eyewitness described as “half the Eastside Catholic football team,” according to a police report.

Police found two alleged victims beaten and bruised. One of them went to a hospital with what records describe as a minor concussion and bruised ribs. Although the alleged victims, who did not attend Eastside Catholic, provided two suspect names, police didn’t pursue an investigation because the teens wouldn’t cooperate further.

But nearly two months later, on Oct. 13, one of those teens and a third alleged victim approached police with videos and additional names. They told police they feared retaliation by players.

The videos, according to police reports, showed one player grabbing an alleged victim in a chokehold from behind, while another blindsided a teen with a punch and knocked him unconscious. They recommended felony charges against both.

A third player was said by police to be seen “curb-stomping” a teen defenseless on the ground. He was initially charged with misdemeanor assault.

But King County prosecutors said it was still difficult to ascertain that the players weren’t acting in self-defense and therefore didn’t merit felony charges.

After King County declined more serious felony charges against the 18-year-old, the case was referred to Issaquah prosecutor Alexa McBarron for a possible misdemeanor filing, she said in an interview Tuesday.

Soon after, a Seattle lawyer who was a “godmother” to the player gave McBarron eight sworn statements from eyewitnesses not interviewed by police, as well as an audio recording. Together, they portrayed a different scenario, in which the 18 year-old was trying to pull the alleged victim away from fighting a much bigger player.

Based on that evidence, McBarron re-examined the case. After finding problems with victims’ statements and seeing Snapchat messages suggesting they appeared to be threatening players before and after the altercation, she declined to file charges against the 18-year-old. She also dropped those against the 19-year-old.

Fremantle has sanctioned two of the three players involved in a house gathering on Sunday night.

Despite the WA Police not charging the three Dockers players investigated for breaching coronavirus restrictions by attending a raucous house party, the Dockers have taken a stance.

The club has imposed sanctions on Luke Ryan and Jason Carter, with first-year player Michael Frederick avoiding a fine.

Watch Foxtel in an instant. Catch up and settle in with no installation & no lock-in contract. Sign up to all of Foxtel Now with a 10-day free trial. New customers only.

Chaos reigns in ‘Sirengate’

2:36

Posted: Apr 17, 2020 / 11:50 AM EDT
/ Updated: Apr 17, 2020 / 11:58 AM EDT

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A former West Virginia University men’s basketball player and another man are facing charges after a call about a woman being held hostage lead sheriff’s deputies to find drugs in a home.

On April 16, deputies with the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department responded to a call for a welfare check at a residence at 536 Independence Hills Village in Morgantown in reference to an advisory that a female was being held hostage at that address over an argument about a rental car, according to a criminal complaint.

When deputies arrived on scene, they made contact with Aaric Murray, 30, and Richard Johnson, 23, both of Morgantown, who invited them into the residence and Murray and Johnson informed deputies they had no knowledge of the female being held hostage, deputies said.

Both men allowed deputies to search the residence to make sure the female wasn’t there, and during the search, deputies said they found a bag of crack rock cocaine, a bag of marijuana, cutting agents and drug packaging materials.

Upon a search of Murray’s person, deputies found $6,415 in U.S. currency, which he said he won from gambling at a local hotspot, but had no vouchers to prove this and “none of the hotspots in town are open due to the pandemic,” according to the complaint.

Deputies then took Murray into custody as a result of capias warrants he had against him; deputies searched Johnson and found him in possession of $2,768 in U.S. currency, as well as a “small amount of controlled substances” and taken into custody, deputies said.

A search warrant was later obtained for the residence and during the search, deputies said they found approximately 5 grams of crack rock cocaine, three grams of marijuana, an eighth of a gram of heroin, packaging materials, cutting agents, a set of digital scales, $100 in U.S. currency, four handguns, multiple ledgers and several cell phones.

During an interview, Johnson admitted that his only form of income is $600 a month for disability, according to the complaint.

Johnson has been charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. He is being held in North Central Regional Jail on $20,012 bond.

Murray has been charged as a result of the capias warrants against him. He is being held in North Central Regional Jail. Murray was a center on the WVU basketball team in 2013, after transferring from LaSalle University. After the 2013 season, Murray transferred to Texas Southern University.

SALT LAKE CITY — A suspended University of Utah football player whose roommate is charged with multiple counts of rape is now being investigated in connection with a separate rape allegation.

On Monday, Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham announced that wide receiver Donte Banton and one other player have been suspended from the team indefinitely.

“Whether they get reinstated or not will be determined at a later time,” said Whittingham, who later noted that the suspensions followed a violation of unspecified team rules.

Tuesday, Salt Lake police confirmed that Banton is being investigated to determine whether he played a role in the sexual assaults that his roommate, Terrell Maurice Perriman, 20, is accused of committing.

Banton is also under investigation for a separate rape, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in 3rd District Court.

As of Tuesday, Banton, a sophomore from Lauderhill, Florida, had not been arrested nor charged.

Banton was a roommate of Perriman, of Miami. Perriman was charged last month with a total of three counts of rape and two counts of forcible sodomy, all first-degree felonies; burglary and forcible sexual abuse, second-degree felonies; and aggravated kidnapping, a third-degree felony; for incidents dating back to November.

Perriman was arrested by a SWAT team after prosecutors say he held a 17-year-old high school student against her will and raped her in his Salt Lake apartment on Jan. 23.

After Perriman’s arrest, Salt Lake police made a plea for others to come forward, fearing there could be additional victims. That resulted in two more women contacting police claiming they were also victims and additional charges were filed against him. Perriman was dismissed from the U. football program after the additional charges were filed.

Now police are also looking at claims by a woman who said she was raped by Banton in the same apartment, according to the affidavit.

On Nov. 20, police say two women went to the players’ apartment. Perriman and one woman went into his bedroom, and Banton invited the other woman into his room to watch a movie, the affidavit states.

While in the room, Banton is accused of attempting to remove some of the woman’s clothing.

“The victim stated he ordered her to remove her leggings and she did, due to feeling intimidated and afraid. The suspect then attempted to open her bodysuit and she told him that she was not interested in doing anything with him,” according to the warrant.

Banton then raped the woman, the affidavit states.

After a search warrant was served on Perriman’s phone as part of the investigation into his case, detectives learned that Banton “was texting Terrell Perriman and (the other woman) while he was in the bedroom with the victim. Also through subsequent interviews it has been stated that Donte Banton and (the woman) exchanged texts messages after the rape, discussing the allegations made by the victim,” the warrant says.

On Jan. 29. Salt Lake police served a search warrant at that apartment as part of the Perriman investigation. Banton’s cellphone was seized. The warrant says police want to search Banton’s phone for evidence related to one of Perriman’s new cases.

On Feb. 12, Salt Lake police were contacted by a representative from the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, where discrimination, harassment or sexual misconduct can be reported. The office reported that Banton was telling people he had videos of Perriman having sex with one of the women who stepped forward after his initial arrest.

“Donte Banton claimed that it showed they were engaging in consensual sex and he therefore knew that (she) was lying about being raped,” the warrant states.

The Vancouver police officers who repeatedly Tasered a former university football player during a stop for jaywalking are under investigation for their conduct that night.

Jamiel Moore-Williams, 22, was walking along the Granville Strip after a night out with friends in early February. At the time, he told CTV Vancouver that he had crossed the street, against the light, to avoid a stranger throwing rocks at passersby. That’s when he was stopped by police.

In cellphone video recorded by one of his friends, Moore-Williams can be seen offering his identification to the officers before they pull him to the ground and Taser him multiple times.

The Vancouver Police Department claimed Moore-Williams became “increasingly argumentative” during the altercation and that he tried to put one of the officers into a headlock. The department also said the fitness trainer and former defensive end for the UBC Thunderbirds gave officers the middle finger when he jaywalked in front of them.

However, B.C.’s police complaint commissioner has questioned the department’s account of events and ordered an investigation under the Police Act. Deputy Police Complaint Commissioner Rollie Woods told CTV Vancouver that the officers’ explanation doesn’t align with the cellphone video of the incident.

“It’s alleged that he choked one of the officers, that’s not evident in the video we saw, so if there is more video we’d like to see it,” Woods said.

Donna Turko, Moore-Williams’ lawyer, said that’s the only video of the arrest she’s aware of at this time.

Woods said that his office has also asked the RCMP to see if there was any excessive use of force during the takedown. The Vancouver police are also conducting an internal investigation into the case.

Moore-Williams is fighting two counts of obstruction of justice and a ticket for jaywalking, his lawyer said.

None of the allegations have been tested in court.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Jon Woodward