ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 1996 TAG: 9606040062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
Christy Brzonkala's attorney asked a judge to dismiss a Virginia Tech football star as a defendant in her federal lawsuit Monday, saying she recently learned he could not have been present when Brzonkala says she was raped by two other players.
Brzonkala's lawsuit says Cornell Brown provided an alibi for suitemate James Crawford by saying he was with Crawford the night of the alleged rape.The lawsuit included him as a "principal in the second degree," alleging he failed to intervene to prevent a crime.
However, a witness recently said Brown could not have been in his dorm suite the night Brzonkala visited there in September 1994, according to Brzonkala's attorney, Eileen Wagner of Richmond.
Wagner says the new witness bolsters her case by casting doubt on Cornell's credibility.
But defense attorneys say Wagner is simply dropping Brown from the suit before the judge does.
"She never had a case against him," said Brown's attorney, Jane Glenn of Roanoke. She is considering seeking sanctions against Wagner for including Brown in the suit.
Brown, a rising senior, made the All-America team and is a star defensive end at Tech. Defense attorneys have called his inclusion in the lawsuit a publicity stunt.
Brzonkala is suing Crawford and Tony Morrison under the Violence Against Women Act. She says the two football players raped her in their dorm room shortly after she began her freshman year at Tech, in September 1994. She later dropped out of Tech and now attends George Mason University.
Brzonkala also named Tech as a defendant, but Chief U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser dismissed the university from the suit this spring.
Crawford's attorney said he isn't concerned that the new witness could cast doubt on his client's story. Crawford also had testified at a campus judicial hearing that Brown was with him at the time Brzonkala says she was raped by Crawford, according to the lawsuit.
"If it's so earth-shaking, why didn't the grand jury indict? The grand jury had the benefit of all this stuff," Joe Painter said, referring to the Montgomery County grand jury's refusal to indict Crawford and Morrison on rape charges in April.
Brown was added as a defendant to the lawsuit late, after Tech released transcripts from two campus judicial hearings in which he testified. The transcripts were provided to the parties in the case, but are subject to a judge's order that prevents them from being made public.
According to Brzonkala's lawsuit, Brown testified that he was in the suite the three football players shared the night that Brzonkala visited Morrison and Crawford.
Brown testified that Crawford left Morrison and Brzonkala in one room and went into his room for about 15 minutes. Brown says he and Crawford then returned to the other room while Brzonkala was still there with Morrison, the lawsuit says.
Brzonkala says Morrison and Crawford took turns raping her and has maintained that she never saw Brown there. Morrison says what happened between him and Brzonkala was consensual. Crawford denies having sex with her.
Brzonkala did not file criminal charges against the football players, but proceeded through the campus judicial system. A judicial board took no action against Crawford and found Morrison guilty of sexual assault . A second hearing panel found Morrison guilty of the lesser charge of using abusive language toward Brzonkala. Both panels recommended he be suspended for two semesters, but the provost overruled them and put him on probation instead.
Wagner has said she added Brown as a defendant after reading the transcript of his testimony. But after meeting with state police investigators 10 days ago, Wagner said, she learned of a witness who said Brown could not have been in the dorm suite the night of the incident.
She would not elaborate on who the witness is or where he said he saw Brown that night.
Wagner would not characterize Brown's testimony as a lie or say for certain that Brown was not present during the incident. But she said she has "serious doubts he was there. A witness says he couldn't have been there, and my client says she didn't see anyone there."
State police in Salem conducted a criminal investigation of Brzonkala's complaint this spring at the request of Attorney General Jim Gilmore after publicity about her lawsuit. A grand jury in Montgomery County declined to indict the players, and state police will not release details of their investigation.
Police did meet with attorneys for Morrison, Crawford and Brzonkala, however, to inform them of "private information" collected about their individual client, said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robert Perry.
Even though she no longer has a claim against Brown under the Violence Against Women Act, Wagner said, she plans to file suit against him in state court based on his possible interference with the judicial board's fact-finding.
"Cornell Brown will be an old man before he hears the end of this," she said. "Mr. Brown is not off the hook by a long shot."
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