Matt Araiza accused of rape, served with a lawsuit.

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

8 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

Search engine here ain't great, but it will do an adequate job finding unusual terms like "moon" in a thread.

 

Thanks.   Now if I actually knew what I was doing, I'd imagine I could tag him in my post or something similar.  But I don't!

[Warcodered]

1 minute ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

Thanks.   Now if I actually knew what I was doing, I'd imagine I could tag him in my post or something similar.  But I don't!

You just do this @Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Just @ and the user name

[Buffalo Boy]

43 minutes ago, aceman_16 said:

It amazes me this topic is still going after the dude is no longer a Buffalo Bill and literally nothing new is being contributed but repeat information and confirmation bias. I will include my useless post for the proactive response to the trolls

[Beck Water]

35 minutes ago, Motorin' said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is actually really interesting, and a worthwhile watch.

 

Jamie Erdahl, asked for her opinion, takes it somewhere I didn't expect. 

 

Her key point: if a player's name is on a police report before the draft, that information should be made common to 32 teams.  It shouldn't be a case that [at least] 2 teams know something about it, while others [at least 11] don't  "our investigators are better than yours, nyah nyah".

 

My head is kind of exploding trying to wrap my mind around this.   Overall, I think it's the kind of thing that sounds good, but really would be a Swamp.

 

First of all, Erdahl says "for the last 10 years" which, for 21-24 yr old young men is clearly inappropriate; juvenile records are sealed, juveniles who are questioned or mentioned in police reports, that should not be available.

 

Second, "on a police report" can be there as a "person of interest" later dropped from consideration as a suspect, can mean questioned as a possible witness, can mean lots of things. 

 

Do we really want to go someplace in our society where just being mentioned on a police report can impact someone's career chances?  I think we're already in a bad place civilly where having bad credit, which can be caused by identity theft or credit reporting agency error, affects job prospects and housing choices and the person affected has little redress.  I have a friend whose sibling has been repeatedly bypassed for jobs he was qualified for by education and experience, and interviewed well for, because his credit is a wreck.  Why is his credit a wreck?  He had a joint bank account with his elderly mother so he could help her pay taxes etc - and she fell into the hands of a predatory drug addict who moved in and financially abused her.

 

So I'm not comfortable with that "if your name is on a police report, Tell the World" idea.

 

On the other hand, we're talking about reports of possible "red flag" behavior that some teams will have more concern with than others, and that theoretically just serve as a basis for questions to be asked so that the team can make a judgement.  So maybe there should be a list of "flagged information" where if one team gets information, it should be shared.

 

On the gripping hand, we're talking about the NFL draft, where "all's fair in love and pre-draft maneuvering" so tactics such as releasing dubious information right before the draft in the hopes of causing teams drafting ahead of you to back off a player and letting him falls to you, are a thing.  So I can see clear potential for that information exchange to be misused.

 

It's still one of the more interesting (and solution based) suggestions I've heard coming out of this brouhaha

 

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Beck Water

[muppy]

21 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

Strongly recommend that you watch this, for your own benefit and the benefit of people you know and love.

 

YEP. One of my sons exes was a public defender in the Bronx NY. She said that in her line of work having your clients words on the record with the police makes her job that much more difficult to defend him/her client. Her mindset was the police want to find facts to Prosecute you. And yes rule you out as a suspect too But overall they want to find the perp and  "I want a lawyer present" best protects YOU 

Edited August 29, 2022 by muppy

[Warcodered]

1 minute ago, Beck Water said:

 

This is actually really interesting, and a worthwhile watch.

 

Jamie Erdahl, asked for her opinion, takes it somewhere I didn't expect. 

 

Her key point: if a player's name is on a police report before the draft, that information should be made common to 32 teams.  It shouldn't be a case that 2 teams know about it, "our investigators are better than yours, nyah nyah".

 

My head is kind of exploding trying to wrap my mind around this.   Overall, I think it's the kind of thing that sounds good, but really would be a Swamp.

 

First of all, Erdahl says "for the last 10 years" which, for 21-24 yr old young men is clearly inappropriate; juvenile records are sealed, juveniles who are questioned or mentioned in police reports, that should not be available.

 

Second, "on a police report" can be there as a "person of interest" later dropped from consideration as a suspect, can mean questioned as a possible witness, can mean lots of things.  Do we really want to go someplace in our society where just being mentioned on a police report can impact someone's career chances?  I think we're already in a bad place civilly where having bad credit, which can be caused by identity theft or credit reporting agency error, affects job prospects and housing choices and the person affected has little redress.

 

So I'm not comfortable with that.

 

On the other hand, we're talking about reports of possible "red flag" behavior that some teams will have more concern with than others, and that serve as a basis for questions to be asked so that the team can make a judgement.  So maybe there should be a list of "flagged information" where if one team gets information, it should be shared.

 

On the gripping hand, we're talking about the NFL draft, where tactics such as releasing dubious information right before the draft in the hopes of causing teams drafting ahead of you to back off a player, so he falls to you, are a thing.  So I can see clear potential for that information exchange to be misused.

 

It's still one of the more interesting (and solution based) suggestions I've heard coming out of this brouhaha

 

 

Yeah I didn't like that at all, biggest issue of this whole thing for me was how do you balance some very serious allegations with someone still having a presumption of innocence/right of due process.

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

1 hour ago, Jauronimo said:

The criticism is of the following three varieties, all of which are unfair in my opinion since they're still based on minimal information:

 

1.  The Bills should have known about the allegations pre-draft.  This assumes it was widely known or knowable pre-draft.

2. The Bills should have taken immediate action after they found out about the accusations over the summer.  This assumes that in July they had access to all the details contained in the civil suit.

3.  The Bills waited too long after the the news broke to act. This assumes all accusations are credible and ignores the stated goal of the victim's attorney which was to generate enough media attention to pressure the police and DA to get moving on the criminal charges.

 

 

I think what the issue is the answer is somewhere between #2 and 3

 

Correct in July they didn't have access to the details, but they didn't look that hard to find out anything more.  Apparently and not denied by Bills they never called the attorney back for more information.  Maybe he would have given them an advanced copy of the lawsuit or maybe provide more details or at least drop a couple breadcrumbs where to look.

 

Sounds like they more talked with Araiza and felt his version was more believable and didn't look into it much further.  And maybe it still is the more believable version, but if they had got more of the alleged details, they likely would have added 2 plus 2 and figured out even if Araiza account is 100% the truth, they'd never withstand the public outrage when then the lawsuit was released and it would never be possible to wait until the actual truth comes out.  So maybe we really need to take a much harder look into this, but doesn't appear they did.

 

It's also possible in this late July conversation with the attorney, he kind of conveyed to the Bills money can make this go away so the Bills after talking with Araiza felt it was just a shakedown, but even so should have probably attempted to dig deeper.  

 

Like it or not it's the journalists job to dig deeper where as fans we'll more take the word of the person you want to believe.  It's like when someone gets arrested for murder, often here, "My son didn't do it"  AP and Athletic all kind of give similar accounts that the Bills easily could have done more, so it's not just the BN that is after them.

 

McD's comments the other day before any of this was released after they cut Haack was something like "Araiza is a fine young man"  Why say that if there's even the potential of something like this out there?  So the team dug themselves into a bit of a hole IMO.  Certainly not as deep as Cleveland has, but a bit of a hole.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, BillsFanSD said:

We all need to keep in mind that we don't know what the Bills know.  

 

I am extremely uncomfortable with Matt Araiza (or any player) being released based on what we know right now.  We, the general public, don't even know what Araiza's side of the story even is.  None of us can possibly have an informed opinion of whether it's credible, to what degree it conflicts with the version of events laid out in the complaint, whether he's changed his story over time, etc. 

 

I can easily imagine a situation in which the Bills had excellent reasons for dumping Araiza.  For example, suppose hypothetically that he told them back in July that he never touched Jane Doe and now last week he admits to having consensual sex with her -- I would absolutely be in favor of firing an employee who lied about something like that, or omitted that kind of major detail from his story.  These kinds of issues often come down to who you're going to believe, and why take the word of somebody who has already been dishonest with me once?  But again, this is just speculation and I have no idea if anything like this happened. 

 

Unfortunately, I can also easily imagine a situation in which the Bills made an effort to get their facts straight, decided that there wasn't enough evidence to take any action against Araiza, and then got cowed into doing so by a Twitter mob.  I would be disappointed if that's what the Bills did, but a) it's been known to happen and b) I have no idea if that's what actually happened.

 

I argued over the weekend for withholding judgement on Araiza until we had better information.  I'm strongly inclined to give the Bills the same benefit of the doubt.  They have a pretty good track record and their incentives were aligned correctly.  I have no reason to think that they acted improperly, so I'll assume their decisions were reasonable until shown evidence to the contrary.     

 

Beane said in his press conference that if any of the allegations turned out to be true, they would not be comfortable with Araiza on the team. It's possible that they were unaware of the statutory rape charge before the civil suit was filed, and that charge alone may be enough for them to have cut him regardless of how involved he was with the alleged gang rape. I know people in this thread have argued over the merits of that charge but from a Bills perspective I can't blame them if they decided to just cut ties with him altogether rather than making a public stand over the fine details.

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by HappyDays

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

21 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

You just do this @Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Just @ and the user name

 

OK well that didn't work. LOL

[JoPoy88]

18 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

This is actually really interesting, and a worthwhile watch.

 

Jamie Erdahl, asked for her opinion, takes it somewhere I didn't expect. 

 

Her key point: if a player's name is on a police report before the draft, that information should be made common to 32 teams.  It shouldn't be a case that [at least] 2 teams know something about it, while others [at least 11] don't  "our investigators are better than yours, nyah nyah".

 

My head is kind of exploding trying to wrap my mind around this.   Overall, I think it's the kind of thing that sounds good, but really would be a Swamp.

 

First of all, Erdahl says "for the last 10 years" which, for 21-24 yr old young men is clearly inappropriate; juvenile records are sealed, juveniles who are questioned or mentioned in police reports, that should not be available.

 

Second, "on a police report" can be there as a "person of interest" later dropped from consideration as a suspect, can mean questioned as a possible witness, can mean lots of things. 

 

Do we really want to go someplace in our society where just being mentioned on a police report can impact someone's career chances?  I think we're already in a bad place civilly where having bad credit, which can be caused by identity theft or credit reporting agency error, affects job prospects and housing choices and the person affected has little redress.  I have a friend whose sibling has been repeatedly bypassed for jobs he was qualified for by education and experience, and interviewed well for, because his credit is a wreck.  Why is his credit a wreck?  He had a joint bank account with his elderly mother so he could help her pay taxes etc - and she fell into the hands of a predatory drug addict who moved in and financially abused her.

 

So I'm not comfortable with that "if your name is on a police report, Tell the World" idea.

 

On the other hand, we're talking about reports of possible "red flag" behavior that some teams will have more concern with than others, and that theoretically just serve as a basis for questions to be asked so that the team can make a judgement.  So maybe there should be a list of "flagged information" where if one team gets information, it should be shared.

 

On the gripping hand, we're talking about the NFL draft, where "all's fair in love and pre-draft maneuvering" so tactics such as releasing dubious information right before the draft in the hopes of causing teams drafting ahead of you to back off a player and letting him falls to you, are a thing.  So I can see clear potential for that information exchange to be misused.

 

It's still one of the more interesting (and solution based) suggestions I've heard coming out of this brouhaha

 

 

yeah after watching she’s basically arguing for some sort of parity by way of league investigation into, everyone that might be drafted, i guess? I see where she’s coming from but that’s not feasible at all.

[Gugny]

1 hour ago, Jauronimo said:

The criticism is of the following three varieties, all of which are unfair in my opinion since they're still based on minimal information:

 

1.  The Bills should have known about the allegations pre-draft.  This assumes it was widely known or knowable pre-draft.

2. The Bills should have taken immediate action after they found out about the accusations over the summer.  This assumes that in July they had access to all the details contained in the civil suit.

3.  The Bills waited too long after the the news broke to act. This assumes all accusations are credible and ignores the stated goal of the victim's attorney which was to generate enough media attention to pressure the police and DA to get moving on the criminal charges.

 

 

Spot on.

[Beck Water]

2 hours ago, BillsFanSD said:

We all need to keep in mind that we don't know what the Bills know.  

 

I am extremely uncomfortable with Matt Araiza (or any player) being released based on what we know right now.  We, the general public, don't even know what Araiza's side of the story even is.  None of us can possibly have an informed opinion of whether it's credible, to what degree it conflicts with the version of events laid out in the complaint, whether he's changed his story over time, etc. 

 

I can easily imagine a situation in which the Bills had excellent reasons for dumping Araiza.  For example, suppose hypothetically that he told them back in July that he never touched Jane Doe and now last week he admits to having consensual sex with her -- I would absolutely be in favor of firing an employee who lied about something like that, or omitted that kind of major detail from his story.  These kinds of issues often come down to who you're going to believe, and why take the word of somebody who has already been dishonest with me once?  But again, this is just speculation and I have no idea if anything like this happened. 

 

Unfortunately, I can also easily imagine a situation in which the Bills made an effort to get their facts straight, decided that there wasn't enough evidence to take any action against Araiza, and then got cowed into doing so by a Twitter mob.  I would be disappointed if that's what the Bills did, but a) it's been known to happen and b) I have no idea if that's what actually happened.

 

I argued over the weekend for withholding judgement on Araiza until we had better information.  I'm strongly inclined to give the Bills the same benefit of the doubt.  They have a pretty good track record and their incentives were aligned correctly.  I have no reason to think that they acted improperly, so I'll assume their decisions were reasonable until shown evidence to the contrary.     

 

Quality post.  I would like to note that Araiza has not, as far as I know, in fact admitted to having sex of any kind with Jane Doe.  There is an allegation in the plaintiff's lawsuit that he admitted to having sex in a taped phone conversation.  But that is an allegation in a lawsuit, based upon the plaintiff's recollection of the conversation, not the tape.  It should not be taken as fact.  I guess Araiza's lawyer rather implied he might have, by omission?  Which is closer to Araiza admitting it.  But still.

 

I am NOT uncomfortable with Araiza (or any player) being released based on what we know right now.

 

An employer is not a court of law.  Their math for an employee is fundamentally a simple flowchart: 

"Does this employee bring our business more benefit than detraction?" 

Yes -> keep him 

No -> off he goes.

I've been both the manager and the managee in this equation.

 

So we look hard-heartedly at this equation.  The Bills are made aware of allegations that they acknowledge, would have taken him off their draft board.  But he's drafted, he's performing remarkably, he's apparently a likeable guy and a good teammate.  Players and coaches are human. No one wants to feel they could be one phone call of allegations away from the unemployment line; no manager wants to fire a strong contributor over allegations.

 

So I strongly disagree with Fairburn and others in the press who are beating the drum that the Bills should have kicked Araiza to the curb the moment they learned of the allegations.

 

But once the alleged misbehavior is out in the public eye and known in the locker room, that benefit/harm equation has to be revisited. 

 

You have a locker room full of human beings.  Many of them are husbands or have steady girlfriends.  Many of them are "girl dads".  Now they're reading that one of their brothers, is alleged to have "mickey'd" a girl and brought her to a room where she was gang raped for 1 1/2 hrs and left bruised and bleeding from her ***** and ripped piercings.  That's hard to wrap your mind around.  You could see how shaken McDermott, Keenum, and Barkley were

 

It can not help but be a distraction and a morale-buster in the locker room, even if Araiza continues to perform remarkably.  Look how divided we are in our opinions  in this thread.  It will be this divisive in the locker room.

 

IMHO the minute the specific allegations came out in public with Araiza's name attached to them (with or without a lawsuit), the benefit/harm equation shifted drastically and the Bills had to cut him.

 

I personally think the Bills response was not the best.  I think they could have milked the plaintiff's lawyer for information about his motivations and intentions and 'read the tealeaves' that this was NOT a situation that was going to go away or reach a quiet settlement (despite the plaintiff's lawyer taunting Araiza with that possibility, that's clearly not his desired end game).  Then I think their best path would have been to cut Araiza, keep Haack, and explore trades/team cuts for a Haack upgrade.  They could have done that "for skill" and given reasons that would raise no eyebrows - a similar situation of "young boomer vs canny directional artist and proven holder" is playing out in Tennessee.

 

That would be what we used to call the "least ripples" path

 

It is, of course, possible that the Bills did find some discrepancy between information they gathered independent of the investigation and what Araiza told them

 

[YoloinOhio]

 

[JESSEFEFFER]

Aside from the filing of the civil suit, is Matt Araiza the punter vs. the Rams?  Yes?  The timing of the filing could have been much worse if it were September 7th or sometime thereafter in the middle of game preparation.  Lucky to be done with it now.

[Warriorspikes51]

Beane and Sean obviously originally valued the word of their player more than a Jane Doe. 
And shouldn't that be their default response in a situation like this?

Otherwise, players would lose trust in them....
They could be weary that any accusation of wrong against them would result in immediate condemnation

Edited August 29, 2022 by Warriorspikes51

[RoyBatty is alive]

5 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

The criticism is of the following three varieties, all of which are unfair in my opinion since they're still based on minimal information:

 

1.  The Bills should have known about the allegations pre-draft.  This assumes it was widely known or knowable pre-draft.

2. The Bills should have taken immediate action after they found out about the accusations over the summer.  This assumes that in July they had access to all the details contained in the civil suit.

3.  The Bills waited too long after the the news broke to act. This assumes all accusations are credible and ignores the stated goal of the victim's attorney which was to generate enough media attention to pressure the police and DA to get moving on the criminal charges.

 

I agree with 2 and 3 BUT i think the Bills should have known about the allegations pre-draft. Araiza was mentioned multiple times on Twitter as a possible suspect.   I would assume they have some sort of tech service provider vetting any candidate.  Then they could have asked him straight up before the draft what the story was and not been blindsided by it.

 

To me it is reminiscent of the Bills getting blindsided (supposedly) pre draft of the infamous Josh Allen's posts.  You dont draft somebody 7th without a thorough background check of all social media.

Edited August 29, 2022 by RoyBatty is alive

[Iverwig]

16 minutes ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

Beane and Sean obviously originally valued the word of their player more than a Jane Doe. 
And shouldn't that be their default response in a situation like this?

Otherwise, players would lose trust in them....
They could be weary that any accusation of wrong against them would result in immediate condemnation

This is where I believe people are going overboard in the actions by the Bills. What prevents anyone from making an accusation against any player in any sport and getting them cut or at least suspended/benched. When the Bills made the decision they did to keep Araiza the optics weren’t going to be in their favor once it reached the public.  The allegations are bad but it doesn’t mean Araiza is actually guilty. 

[UKBillFan]

47 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

Part of the reason why I think the accused’s name should not be released but, as it’s currently a civil claim, not sure what could have been done to prevent it.

[PromoTheRobot]

Dan Gilleon is a piece...of something.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by PromoTheRobot

[RiotAct]

oh boy guys, better watch out for “Danger Dan” Gilleon!!!