EUGENE, Ore. (CN) - A University of Oregon basketball star instigated the gang rape of a freshman 4 months after he was suspended from another school for his role in an alleged gang rape there, the freshman claims in court.
Jane Doe sued the University of Oregon and its head basketball coach Dana Dean Altman on Thursday in Federal Court. They are the only defendants.
Doe claims they ignored knowledge of the basketball recruit's previous suspension for allegations of sexual assault; delayed investigating claims that he instigated her gang rape so he could finish the basketball season; and allowed two of her three assailants to transfer to other schools with clean academic records, though the UO's director of student conduct found the recruit and two other basketball players "responsible for the sexual assault of plaintiff."
Doe says she was drunk at a party hosted in March 2014 by Ducks basketball player Jonathan Lloyd, who is not a party to the lawsuit.
Doe says three other players on the team "cornered" her in the bathroom.
"The clear instigator and most aggressive of the three assailants was a man named Brandon Austin, who had just transferred to UO from Providence College in January," the lawsuit states.
Doe claims the three men "began to grope plaintiff and remove her clothes."
She says she "attempted to keep her clothes on and push the men away, but she was overwhelmed by their size and strength, leaving plaintiff trapped in the small bathroom with no ability to escape."
"The men pushed her cell phone out of her reach saying, 'no one wants to talk to you' and commenced the first of multiple gang rapes of plaintiff," the lawsuit states.
Doe claims the three men then took her to one of the UO's off-campus apartments, "where they continued to gang rape plaintiff, at one point trying to get additional students in the building to rape plaintiff."
"After plaintiff was crying for a period of time, the assailants lost interest and the rape finally stopped," according to the complaint.
Doe says she told her father about the gang rape via text message the next morning, and he called the police. She says she cooperated with the investigation launched by the Eugene Police Department.
Ten days after she was raped, Doe says, "The Wall Street Journal reported that Austin had been previously suspended at Providence College following an allegation of a gang rape occurring on or about November 3, 2013."
Providence College accepted Austin as a "prized recruit" in 2013, according to the complaint. But before the season began, Austin and a teammate "were suspended from the team indefinitely for a reported gang rape of another Providence student," Doe says in the lawsuit.
"Austin's indefinite suspension became a season-long suspension on December 23, 2013, when Providence officials found him responsible for sexual assault," according to the complaint.
Providence officials changed Austin's punishment to allow him to transfer to another school, Doe claims. But his season-long suspension from the Providence basketball team remained in place, a fact "widely reported in the media," she says.
Doe claims that UO head coach Dana Altman and his assistant, nonparty Tony Stubblefield, knew about Austin's suspension for sexual assault, but recruited him anyway.