LSU Didn't Investigate Rape Allegations Against Derrius Guice, USA Today Reports

A pair of former Louisiana State University students accused NFL running back Derrius Guice of rape in 2016, a USA Today investigation found, raising questions about the school’s response to the allegations.

Neither woman filed a complaint with the police. They told friends and family about the alleged assaults. LSU was informed about the incidents, but the school never launched an official investigation, USA Today reported Wednesday.

Guice played for LSU 2015-17 before being selected in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft. The Washington Football Team released Guice on Aug. 7 following a domestic violence arrest.

Guice’s first accuser told USA Today she was assaulted by Guice in her bedroom after a party at her apartment. The woman was drunk and went to sleep before the alleged assault, and she continued to have flashbacks of the incident in the days following the party. Members of the LSU football team told the woman that Guice talked about having sex with her, USA Today reported.

The woman told a friend on the LSU diving team about the alleged rape. Against the woman’s wishes, the diver reported the incident to her coach, who told athletic officials from the school.

“They said they couldn’t do anything because [the victim] didn’t want to talk, and because it didn’t happen to me,” the diver told USA Today.

The woman told a nurse at the LSU health center she didn’t plan to pursue a complaint against Guice. Her boyfriend, who wasn’t at the party but played on the LSU football team the following year, said LSU head coach Ed Orgeron likely knew Guice had nonconsensual sex with the woman.

The second woman who accused Guice of rape was a former tennis player and lived in the same apartment complex as Guice. She said the alleged assault happened after meeting Guice at a bar when she was extremely intoxicated.

“I was very drunk,” the woman told USA Today. “Way too drunk to give consent in the first place.”

The tennis player said Guice drove her and her friend home from the bar. He returned to her apartment later in the night after asking if he could come over. The woman claims Guice forced her to perform oral and vaginal sex, USA Today reported.

In April 2017, after the woman had been dismissed from the tennis team because she failed a drug test, the woman’s father told LSU tennis coach Julia Sell a football player had raped his daughter. The father said Sell didn’t believe the allegation.

Two years later, LSU Title IX coordinator Jennie Stewart told the woman the school had a record of her assault claim though Guice wasn’t named. The woman and her father told USA Today neither LSU’s Title IX office nor athletic department officials contacted them about starting an investigation.

Guice was arrested earlier this month following domestic violence incidents in February, March and April.