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Matt Araiza made headlines for all the wrong reasons last year when he saw his name dragged into gang rape allegations involving a minor during his time with San Diego State. The punter saw his NFL career come crashing down after the Buffalo Bills decided to waive his services amid these appalling accusations.
Araiza has since been exonerated from the case after the San Diego District Attorney’s Office determined that the evidence did not support the filing of criminal charges against him. Nevertheless, the damage has been done to Araiza and his career. At this point, the 23-year-old has every intention of taking legal action against attorney Dan Gilleon for defamation:
“I’ve already hired an attorney for it, and things have already been drafted,” Araiza revealed in a recent tell-all interview (h/t Mike Florio of PFT). “I will never waive my right to sue him. That’s coming.”
This only means that Araiza does not intend to settle the pending court case at any price. For his part, Gilleon, who represents the victim who filed the case against Araiza and Co., isn't backing down. While Gilleon has accepted the notion that Araiza was not present during the actual rape incident, the lawyer refuses to believe that the former Bills punter is innocent:
“We are not saying that he was, and we are not saying that he wasn’t,” Gilleon said. “Let’s say he was not one of the men in there. That doesn’t absolve him of liability.
“Our allegation is, is he contributed heavily to the harm that she suffered that night. He had sex with my client. Following that, she ended up having sex with multiple guys and came out of there bloodied, in shock. Ended up at the hospital, ended up with the police, and ended up traumatized. So that’s what I mean by the gang rape. Gang rapes can occur for two days. They can occur over time. They can occur multiple places. So that’s the clarification.”
What is clear here is that this case isn't going away anytime soon. Matt Araiza also isn't backing down as he looks to clear his name from this case. Whether or not this helps him resurrect his NFL career, however, is an altogether different matter.
