Prosecutors: No charges for U wrestlers accused of sex assault
Updated 12:15 p.m.
Members of the University of Minnesota wrestling team under scrutiny for months in a criminal sexual assault case will not be charged, Hennepin County prosecutors said Friday.
“Conflicting versions” of events made it difficult to prove a case against the wrestlers that would meet a criminal court’s “beyond reasonable doubt” threshold for conviction, said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.
Two wrestlers were arrested in June on suspicion of sexual criminal conduct. They were not charged and were released from jail, although Freeman’s office said it would continue to review evidence that came in over subsequent months.
Freeman on Friday said the case review included members of the sex crimes unit of the Minneapolis police as well as prosecutors in his office who specialize in sexual assault cases. The result of that investigation: no charges would be filed against the wrestlers.
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“There was inadequate evidence to fairly charge and prosecute this case,” Freeman said in a statement, adding that “given Minnesota’s current laws regarding intoxication and a victim’s ability to give consent, the office was restricted in how they could charge the case.”
Freeman later elaborated on the state’s laws, telling reporters that Minnesota limits prosecution to “extreme cases where a suspect administered an intoxicant to the victim without his or her consent, or when the victim is asleep, unconscious or so impaired they cannot communicate.”
Wisconsin law gives prosecutors broader discretion to charge when the victim is conscious and communicating, Freeman noted.
He said he would not speculate on whether charges would have have happened in this case had Minnesota’s laws mirrored Wisconsin’s, but he called on Minnesota lawmakers to “seriously consider making changes to the sexual assault statute.”