SAN DIEGO — Former Aztecs and NFL punter Matt Araiza filed a defamation lawsuit Friday against the teenager accusing him of raping her.
The new filing comes as Araiza's attorneys have viewed cell phone videos of the then 17-year-old girl taken during an off-campus, San Diego State football party in October 2021.
In addition, CBS 8 has learned, a second young woman reported being raped at the same off-campus house five months earlier in May 2021.
Two months ago, Araiza told CBS 8 he would not sue his accuser if she dropped her lawsuit, which accuses him and other football players of gang rape during the party at a house on Rockford Drive in the College Area on October 16, 2021.
“I will offer to not sue her if the lawsuit is dropped now. We're both very young, let’s move on with our lives,” Araiza said during an interview with CBS 8 in May 2023.
But the teenage accuser did not drop her lawsuit.
In fact, she added two more former Aztec players as defendants, for a total of five players she is accusing of rape.
Araiza’s complaint, filed in downtown San Diego court, accuses the now 19-year-old woman of making, “Defamatory statements with malice and with the intent to cause plaintiff harm and damage his reputation."
It seeks damages for defamation, citing several media interviews where the woman talked about the alleged rape and Araiza’s alleged involvement.
Araiza’s lawsuit names the woman, but CBS 8 is identifying her as Jane Doe, as she is identified in other court filings.
“Defendant [Doe] knowingly made false statements with a reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of such statements to the San Diego Police Department, CBS 8 News, Inside Edition, ABC Nightline News and USA Today for public-wide dissemination. Defendant [Doe’s] statements to a law enforcement agency and the media-press falsely accused Plaintiff of sexually assaulting, raping, and participating in a gang rape of Defendant [Doe], among other falsehoods. At no time did Plaintiff engage in any sexual assault, rape, or gang rape of Defendant [Doe],” the lawsuit reads.
“Defendant [Doe] made these false statements notwithstanding her lengthy and detailed meeting with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office just five months earlier on December 7, 2022, where she personally viewed one video where she is observed conscious, aware, and a willing participant,” the lawsuit continues.
Araiza was cut from the Buffalo Bills shortly after the woman filed her lawsuit in August 2022.
“I was led into the room and I was pushed down face down onto the bed and I started going in and out of consciousness,” Jane Doe said in a 2022 interview with CBS News.
In December, the DA’s office declined to file charges in the case citing a lack of evidence and claiming in a statement that “there is no path to a potential criminal conviction.”
CBS 8 also has learned that a second young woman reported to police that she was raped at the same off-campus house on Rockford Drive on the evening of May 5, 2021.
An SDPD call for service record listed the event as a “rape report” filed by an adult woman.
The female “woke up in her own bed today... Has bruises all over-- has no recollection of what happened,” the dispatch log read.
The DA’s office said San Diego police did not forward the May 2021 case to its office for potential criminal charges and, apparently, no criminal charges were filed, just as no criminal charges were filed in the October 2021 incident involving Araiza.
SDPD told CBS 8 the department will not release any information in the earlier rape report, claiming the case is still an “active investigation” more than two years later.
“Who did what to whom is what really matters right now and we have a right to find out,” said Dan Gilleon, the attorney representing the young woman who filed the lawsuit against the five football players.
Gilleon plans to file a motion to compel SDPD to turn over more information about the second rape report.
“I've been critical of the police department for investigating cases like this, and so maybe they're concerned that this case will be more evidence of an inadequate investigation. But the bottom line is, we have every right to get it,” Gilleon said.
In yet another development, attorneys representing Araiza said they recently viewed 12 cell phone videos recorded at the off-campus party showing the then 17-year-old engaged in sex acts. The attorneys previously went to court to get the video evidence unsealed.
Araiza’s attorney said the videos confirm earlier reports from the District Attorney's office that the girl did not appear drunk, and that she appeared to be consensually engaging in sex acts with several football players at the October 2021 party.
The woman's attorney said in court the videos are short – taken off snap chat – and only show “point of view” angles of his client, and do not depict identifiable images of the football players involved.
Attorneys representing all parties in the woman’s lawsuit will be back in court on August 4.
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