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Woman who accused ex-Buffalo Bills player of gang rape says he should never have played in the NFL

Woman says she was attacked at Halloween party in California when she was 17 – Matt Araiza has denied any involvement

Graeme Massie
Los Angeles
Wednesday 31 August 2022 20:37 BST
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Teen who accused Buffalo Bills player of gang rape says he never should have made it to the NFL

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The teenager who has accused a former Buffalo Bills player of rape says he should never have made it to the NFL.

The 18-year-old woman alleges that Matt Araiza and two other San Diego State University players assaulted her at a Halloween party last October.

The woman, who was 17 at the time of the alleged assault, says her phone was taken from her, her piercings were ripped out and she was left bloodied afterward.

“I was crying, and my friend asked me what happened,” the woman told CBS News of the alleged incident. “And I told her, I had just been raped.”

The woman told the news organisation that she wrote about the incident in her journal the following day. “All I keep replaying in my mind is being face down in a random bed just waiting for it to be over,” she said she wrote in the journal.

Matt Araiza
Matt Araiza (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Now the woman has filed a lawsuit against Mr Araiza, 22, who was drafted as a sixth-round pick in April.

But she has denied allegations that she is trying to squeeze money out of the athlete.

“I reported it the day after it happened. I was 17 years old and I had no idea who Matt Araiza was,” she said.

And she said that she could not believe it when he became an NFL player after his college career.

“I can’t put into words how upsetting it was when I’ve been facing consequences for his actions,” she told CBS News.

No criminal charges have been filed against Mr Araiza or anyone in the case, which is with the San Diego district attorney.

Mr Araiza’s lawyer, Kerry Armstrong, has strongly denied his client had anything to do with the attack.

“I would be very surprised if they ever charged Matt Araiza with anything in this case,” Mr Armstrong told the outlet.

“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.”

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