BillsFanSD

Okay, this is getting weird now.

Hypothetically? I can imagine a situation in which Araiza is confronted with this allegation a month ago. He tells the Bills that nothing happened with him and Jane Doe -- she showed up, he saw she was drunk, he put her someplace where she could sleep it off, and he left. That's it. Then 48 hours ago the Bills learn about the pretextual calls . . . Obviously this is just my imagination. Nobody in this thread has any idea what the Bills knew then or what they know now, who told what to whom, etc. But if you work in a job that involves managing people, you know that folks sometimes tell stupid lies when they get in hot water. Maybe Araiza did that and maybe he didn't. Who knows.

I've followed this thread pretty closely (too closely) and I don't think anybody is disputing any of this.

I don't see the phone call as meaning anything. The phone call is completely consistent with the story that he had consensual sex with Jane Doe. That's fine. I really want to know if Araiza a) drugged her drink and/or b) delivered her to people who he knew were going to rape her. Those are huge, massive deals that warrant prison time. Just having consensual sex isn't, even if the girl was 17 and even if Araiza had an STD.

My personal guess (it's just a guess) is that the Bills have already spoken with other people who were there. I assume any competent PI would do that as his or her first or second order of business. In other words, I think this is probably information that the Bills already have. To be clear, that is not my position. My personal burden of proof for things like this in an employment contest is something like "clear and convincing evidence," not "beyond a reasonable doubt." I can imagine a scenario in which Araiza is found not guilty by a jury and I'd still want him cut anyway. Maybe not the most likely scenario, but it's plausible.

Well, for one, we can hear the accounts of other people who were at the party. Again, this isn't just speculation, like "Well, I don't know, maybe another accuser or a mystery witness will come forward." We know with 100% certainty that there were other people there, some of whom were friends with the plaintiff. I would like to hear from them before making any decisions. I think we've reached the point where I should note that I can tell you exactly what would convince me that Araiza should be released: corroborating testimony from one or more witnesses*. What could happen that would convince you that Araiza should stay, and why are you so eager to make a snap decision now instead of waiting to see if that comes to pass? * There's other stuff too of course, like a rape kit that shows GHB in Jane Doe's system and credible evidence that Araiza served her. But I have no idea if police have that information and I wouldn't expect it to be publicly released just to make life easy on the Bills. Probably the Bills already know what the witness testimony is going to be, though, which is why I'm focusing on that.

Nobody is saying that Matt Araiza has a constitutional right to punt for the Buffalo Bills. We're saying that it would be stupid, short-sighted, and contrary to the team's best interests to make any decision, one way or the other, without at least a little more information that what has been made publicly available. There is no harm whatsoever in waiting a few days.

At this point, though, the accusation is baseless. Or at least it's baseless from our point of view. Jane Doe had friends at the party in question who can back up her claim or undermine it. The police have probably talked with those people. Both sets of attorneys definitely have. The Bills almost certainly have. Everybody connected to this case knows what those young women will testify to. We don't. What possible reason could any of us have for not wanting to wait to hear what they have to say? If Jane Doe's friends agree that Araiza was there and he led Doe back to the room where she was attacked as she described, then this is an easy call -- cut him and be done with it. But why make that call now when we know there are people sitting right there who can provide valuable information one way or the other?

Yep. This seems reasonable to me. Not fair to put the kid out there under a spotlight if he's innocent, and not fair to the fanbase to put him out there if the Bills know more than they've let on.

Again, the age of consent in New York is 17. If Matt Araiza had sex with Jane Doe in his Buffalo residence exactly as it was described in the complaint, it would be perfectly legal. California's laws on this subject are an outlier and should not be taken seriously as any sort of moral guideline. The one and only issue is did Matt Araiza intentionally deliver an intoxicated or drugged girl to a room full of rapists knowing that she would be raped? If the answer is yes, he should be cut and prosecuted. If not, this is all nothing.

The "passing her off to my homies" is the key part here. The other stuff is irrelevant.

For those of you who live in New York, your age of consent is 17. It would have been perfectly legal for Matt Araiza to have sex with the Jane Doe in his Buffalo apartment.

Dude. People have sex at college parties. Most of those people are intoxicated, and some are under age. It happens. It is currently 3:11 on a Friday afternoon. I am very confident that sometime in the next 12 hours, at least one minor will have sex with a student enrolled at my university. Now, in my state the age of consent is 16, which is a lot more reasonable than 18, so there will not be any legal repercussions from any of this. But morally it is the exact same thing, just in a different jurisdiction.

Not really. For all we know, the Bills talked with witnesses who directly disputed the plaintiff's testimony. We don't know what the Bills know or when they learned it, but we can be extremely confident that they know a lot more about this situation than we do one way or the other. Also, are you familiar with Biscuit 97's life after football?

They didn't know about this when they drafted him. They just found out about a month or so ago. That said, they could have kept Haack or signed some other punter if they were concerned about Araiza. It's not like they're heavily invested in this guy or anything.

I'd be shocked if they haven't been interviewed by Araiza's attorney. This is speculation on my part, but I'm tentatively assuming that these are the witnesses he claims are contradicting the plaintiff's story. Otherwise they plaintiff's attorney would be citing them as corroborators. (Edit: This is pure speculation, of course. I am extremely interested in hearing what these folks have to say, and their testimony will greatly inform my views.)

FYI, I agree with you that we should not be making sweeping assumptions about the plaintiff based on her choice of attorneys. She and her family might not have been well-positioned to evaluated the quality of their representation. Her attorney might be a mash-up of Lionel Hutz and Saul Goodman, and she still might be telling the truth about everything.

This is the problem with making snap judgements based on emotion. You end up locking yourself into a position ("this guy must be cut," "it's a shakedown," etc.) and then, human nature being what it is, you backwards-engineer arguments to support that position that you would never have adopted under other circumstances. No NFL team is cutting anybody because they spread an STD. My employer (public university) would never in a million years fire somebody for that. It just isn't a thing that results in discipline with your employer unless you happen to work in some very specialized industries. The rape allegation is extremely serious. If Matt Araiza raped somebody, he should be cut. And prosecuted of course. The rest of the stuff in this complaint is all red herrings.

Well, a 21 year old having sex with a 17 year old is okay, at least to me. I strongly support "Romeo & Juliet" provisions specifically because of stuff like this. To clarify, I am 50. If I hit on a 17 year old, I am a creep and the DA should throw the book at me. Likewise, a 21 year old hitting on a 14 year old is creepy. Throw the book at that guy, absolutely. But 17 and 21 are approximately the same age. There's always going to be some gray area here, but this is fine IMO.

So what? I had sex with a minor once upon a time, and so did my first girlfriend. We were just doing what teenagers have been known to do from time to time. It was fine.

If the "gang rape" allegation doesn't pan out, this whole thing will blow over in five minutes. Nobody cares if a college student had drunken sex with a 17 year old girl consensually.

If there's a tape, then this is all going to get resolved with something close to 100% certainty. Just wait for it to come out in court.

Yeah, but honestly, do you really care if a 21 year old has sex with a 17 year old? I don't. That's just another Saturday night in literally every town in the United States with any population to speak of. For full disclosure, I have two kids who are now 24 (son) and 21 (daughter). One was definitely sexually active in high school and I just assume the other one was. Not happy about that, but I was sexually active in high school, and so were most people posting in this thread. It's normal.

Well, it sounds like there's a rape kit in evidence someplace. Those results could easily persuade me that a rape took place. Also, according to the civil complaint, one of the girl's friends looked in through the window and tried to enter the room where the rape allegedly took place. I think (not sure) that there was another friend or two at the party. Those folks can corroborate or undermine her account of the evening, and we haven't heard from them yet. I would definitely update my priors based on their testimony.

Yes, that's possible. We don't know whether the girl in question was raped, and we don't know by who. Yet.