SAN DIEGO — Former San Diego State Aztecs punter Matt Araiza appeared in court Thursday for a hearing related to a lawsuit where a 17-year-old girl accused him and two other San Diego State football players of rape.
Araiza's attorneys are seeking access to cell phone videos recorded during an off-campus party in October 2021, where the sex acts occurred.
“The reason that we brought this motion was to unseal the videos,” said attorney Kristen Bush, who represents Araiza.
The videos, approximately nine of them recovered via police search warrants, show the teenager having sex with football players inside a College Area house.
As CBS 8 recently reported, the videos do not show Araiza inside the house or having sex.
“He left the party much earlier than the acts that occurred in the bedroom,” Bush said in court.
Araiza’s attorneys want the sex videos unsealed, along with cell phone tracking data, to try and prove what time Araiza left the party. They admit he engaged in consensual sex with the teenager outside the house.
The alleged victim filed a lawsuit last year accusing Araiza and two other players of raping her while intoxicated inside a bedroom. Shortly thereafter, Araiza was then cut from the NFL as a punter with the Buffalo Bills.
“Matt's life has been destroyed by the false allegations that have been asserted by the plaintiff in this lawsuit,” Bush said outside court.
Attorney Dan Gilleon represents the now 18-year-old woman, identified as Jane Doe in legal filings.
“Consent with an intoxicated person, it makes no sense. The whole point is she's so intoxicated that she can't consent. And consent is not relevant in a statutory rape case,” Gilleon told reporters outside court.
Araiza's attorney said the videos will show the teenager was not drunk and that she initiated the sex acts.
“We know from multiple witness statements that she represented that she was 18 years old, that she attended Grossmont College. We know that she was the one going up to certain defendants and other people who are not in the case, instigating, demanding that they have sex with her,” Bush said.
The San Diego County District Attorney announced in December that no criminal charges would be filed in the case.
At the end of Thursday's hearing, Judge Jeffrey Fraser ruled the sex videos will be unsealed. Araiza’s attorneys can now request the video evidence as part of the civil case. The videos likely would be shown to a jury if the lawsuit goes to trial.
Fraser also issued a protective order prohibiting the videos from being publicly distributed.
WATCH RELATED: San Diego District Attorney not filing charges in alleged rape of minor by SDSU football players (Dec. 2023).