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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Accuser Testifies in First Vandy Rape Retrial

NASHVILLE (CN) - On the fifth day of a retrial of a former college football player accused of rape, the alleged victim took the stand Friday and gave tearful testimony about the 2013 incident.

Cory Batey is one of two former Vanderbilt University football players convicted in January 2015 of four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of attempted aggravated rape.

The other player tried last year, Brandon Vandenburg, was also found guilty of one count of tampering with evidence and one count of unlawful photography.

The alleged rape occurred in Vandenburg's Gillette House dorm room in the early morning hours of June 23, 2013. Vandenburg and Batey, along with two others charged in the case, were kicked off the Vanderbilt Commodores football team after the allegations.

The alleged victim testified in last year's trial that she felt "very confused" and nauseous in the morning. She said Vandenburg told her she had gotten sick in his room and he had to clean up.

She said she felt embarrassed and, when campus police began to look into the incident after seeing surveillance camera footage from Gillette House, she told Vandenburg that she didn't want him to get in trouble.

Charges were eventually brought and a jury found Batey and Vandenburg guilty of the charges against them.

They were facing the possibility of decades in prison, but Judge Monte Watkins declared a mistrial last June after finding that a juror failed to disclose that he was the key witness and named victim in an unrelated statutory-rape case.

Watkins ruled that Batey and Vandenburg's retrials would proceed separately, after Vandenburg's attorney tried to delay the case for medical reasons, according to a Tennessean report. Batey's trial began Monday.

On Friday, the alleged victim took the witness stand more than a year after her original testimony in the first trial.

She said Batey was a "complete stranger" to her on the night in question, and said she felt "sore everywhere" the next morning.

"That morning when I first woke up, I began texting [Vandenburg], trying to figure out what was going on," she said.

Earlier this week, detective Chad Gish testified to and described graphic photos and videos recovered from electronic devices during the criminal investigation.

Prosecutor Jan Norman passed an exhibit up to the witness stand Friday morning, and asked if the alleged victim recognized what was in the photo.

"That's me, it's me," she said, crying.

Norman ended her direct questioning by asking the alleged victim if she consented to anything that was done to her in Vandenburg's dorm room that night.

"Absolutely not," she said tearfully.

Defense attorney Courtney Teasley cross-examined the alleged victim. Many of her questions about alcoholic drinks consumed earlier in the night drew objections from Norman.

The state rested its case around 10 a.m. local time Friday morning, when the defense began introducing its witnesses.

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