Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 6, 1995 TAG: 9506060154
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A 15-year-old girl he had met at a Roanoke College party the night before had accused him of rape.
His dreams of college would have to wait, but not for long. A Salem Circuit Court jury found Jordan not guilty Monday.
Neither Jordan, 23, nor the girl, who is now 16, were Roanoke College students. Jordan, of Roanoke, was there to watch a basketball game; she was there for a sleep-over with her sister, who is a student.
But before the night was over, both were at a party in the basement of Fox Hall. By all accounts, that Dec. 3 party was a wild one.
There was alcohol in every mixture imaginable. It was in Jell-O and in punch. Fruit was even soaked in it.
And, according to her sister, the 15-year-old downed two glasses of rum punch and an apple-pie shooter - that's a shot of vodka, with a cinnamon and whipped-cream chaser. The combination left the 15-year-old tired and drunk, her sister said.
The 15-year-old had volleyball practice early the next morning, so she headed back to her sister's room before the party died down.
On her way back to the room she met Jordan in a stairwell. That's where the 15-year-old and Jordan's agreement on the night's events ends.
The girl testified that she never talked to Jordan, that he grabbed her arm on the stairs, then left after she went into her sister's room.
She said he reappeared inside the room and began undressing her. She tried to push him away with her hands and her legs, she said, "but he was too big."
Jordan told a different story.
Although the former William Byrd High School basketball star admits having sex with the girl, he disputes her claim of rape.
He said they went for a walk that night and wound up in the stairwell, where John Smith saw them.
Smith, who accompanied Jordan to the basketball game, testified that he saw the two together twice - once in the hallway, then in the stairwell.
"I saw them sitting and talking," Smith said.
The girl said she doesn't remember that, or the kissing that Jordan said followed. She also doesn't know how he got into the room.
"She directed me to the room," he said. Then he undressed her and began to have sex with her.
He said she never said no, but he stopped the act when "I realized I didn't have any protection on."
After hearing the jury's verdict, Jordan was relieved.
"I'm just glad my name is cleared and, hopefully, my reputation," said Jordan, who plans to return to the University of South Carolina in August. He had gone on to the university in January, after he was charged. But he withdrew three weeks later because court hearings kept him coming back to Salem.
by CNB