Editors’ note: This story contains accounts of sexual assault. If you or someone you know is a survivor of sexual assault, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or at https://www.rainn.org.
Three players from the 2021 San Diego State football team, including punter Matt Araiza, have been formally accused of gang raping a 17-year-old girl at an off-campus party last year, according to a copy of a lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court Thursday. The suit was first reported on by the Los Angeles Times.
The suit alleges Araiza, a 2022 sixth-round pick by the Bills, raped the minor outside the residence where the party took place before bringing her inside to a room where the girl, now 18, says she recalls being raped and assaulted by multiple men. The lawsuit also names offensive lineman Zavier Leonard, who’s currently listed as a redshirt freshman entering the ’22 campaign, and former defensive lineman Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko, a rising sophomore who left the university after last season.
According to the Times, attorneys Marc Xavier Carlos and Jamahl Kersey, who represent Ewaliko and Leonard, respectively, declined to comment on the lawsuit and are still currently examining the complaint. Despite not having yet seen the suit, Araiza’s lawyer, Kerry Armstrong, called the allegations false in comments made to the Times, claiming one of his investigators spoke to witnesses who contradict the accounts relayed about his client. Armstrong went on to say in a televised appearance Thursday night that Araiza is “100 percent adamant that he never forcibly raped this young lady, or forcibly had sex with her in any type of way, or had sexual relations with her while she was intoxicated, or on any other drugs.”
“It’s a shakedown because he’s now with the Buffalo Bills,” Armstrong continued. “There is no doubt in my mind that Matt Araiza ever raped that girl.”
Per court documents obtained by the Times, the off-campus party started on Oct. 16 and the assault occurred in the early hours of Oct. 17. In the lawsuit, the then-minor said she had already been drinking with friends when they arrived at the party and Araiza, who was a junior at the time and lived at the residence, offered her a drink she believes “not only contained alcohol, but other intoxicating substances.”
The complaint goes on to say that she told Araiza she was in high school but he still, knowing she was highly intoxicated, took her outside and forced oral and vaginal penetration. She then says Araiza took her to a bedroom where Leonard, Ewaliko and at least one other man were and threw her on the bed face first. According to the lawsuit, they then raped the teen for an hour and a half until the party was shut down; the report also notes that she said she noticed what appeared to be a light from a cellphone during the ordeal. After the assault concluded, she eventually “stumbled out of the room bloody and crying. Her nose, bellybutton, and ear piercings had been pulled out, and she was also bleeding from her vagina,” per the complaint.
The lawsuit also states the girl told friends she had been raped, spoke with the police roughly five hours after the incident and went to the hospital to undergo an extensive rape exam. The police also reportedly recorded and guided the girl through pretext calls with the men named in the lawsuit whom police “had determined were present in the room when the rape occurred.”
According to the complaint, during a pretext call the girl made with detectives from the police force's sex crimes unit to Araiza in late October, he confirmed that he had sex with the girl and recommended she get tested for a sexually transmitted disease. She also reportedly asked Araiza, “And did we have actual sex?” to which he allegedly replied, after changing his tone, “This is Matt Araiza. I don’t remember anything that happened that night.”
Daniel Gilleon, the girl’s attorney, told the Times the results of the rape exam as well as the audio of the phone calls have not yet been released.
The lawsuit comes nearly two months after the Times reported that five members of SDSU’s football team were reported to campus officials last fall for a rape that was alleged to have taken place at a house party off-campus. The school incurred immediate backlash after the report noted it failed to launch an internal investigation or student disciplinary proceeding more than seven months after being made aware of the incident. SDSU eventually opened its own Title IX investigation nine months after the allegations first surfaced.
The university addressed why it waited to begin its investigation during the announcement, saying that the “San Diego Police Department requested that SDSU not take any action, including launching an investigation and conducting interviews, regarding the reported off campus sexual assault to avoid compromising its own criminal investigation.”
Last month, the woman publicly spoke about the incident for the first time and expressed her disappointment in how the university responded to the matter. Her father, who recently spoke to the Times anonymously, shared that he informed campus police of his daughter’s story three days after the party but was never given any information for the school’s Title IX investigation or complaint process.
“Something like this sticks with you forever,” the girl said, per the Times. “And all I can really do now is just hope that I can get some sort of justice somehow and feel like people are facing consequences for their actions because I feel like I’ve been facing the consequences for their actions.”
Because the incident occured while Araiza was in college, he is not subject to NFL discipline. The Bills have declined comment, citing an “ongoing civil case,” noting that they did a “thorough investigation on the matter.” Araiza recently won the starting job in training camp, with Buffalo cutting the team’s only other punter, Matt Haack, on Aug. 22.
