THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210865
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: 61 lines
A Virginia Tech student testified Thursday that football players Brian Edmonds and James Crawford took turns holding her down and raping her after a party in December.
Montgomery County General District Judge Thomas D. Frith said the woman's testimony was sufficient probable cause to have a grand jury consider charges against the players.
Edmonds, 22, and Crawford, 20, are charged with raping and attempting to sodomize the woman in their Blacksburg apartment Dec. 14.
The 19-year-old woman told Frith that she drank more than a bottle of fortified wine during the party, which was attended by several football players who lived in the apartment and across the hall.
The woman said that after the party ended, she went to Edmonds' bedroom door and asked him if he had seen her boyfriend. She said Edmonds then began pulling her into his room, and Crawford pushed her from behind.
``James tore off my stockings and pulled up my skirt,'' she testified. ``I started asking for Tyron and I kept asking for Tyron.''
The woman's boyfriend is football player Tyron Edmond, who testified that she was crying when she came into his apartment across the hall after the incident.
``She said Brian and James had been in her,'' Edmond testified.
Defense attorney Joe Painter tried to highlight what he said were inconsistencies in the woman's testimony. He also called several witnesses who said they were just leaving the party around the time the woman claims she was being raped.
Football player Nathaniel Williams said he was in his room adjacent to the one where the rape allegedly occurred and never heard the woman yell or call for help.
Painter had planned to call more than a dozen defense witnesses, which is highly unusual for a preliminary hearing, but Frith stopped him after eight. ``We've had all these witness that have not really added anything,'' the judge said.
``Mostly we were just trying to show there is not a whole lot of time in there for a whole lot of activity,'' defense attorney Matt Pethybridge said after the hearing.
Edmonds wept in his mother's arms after the hearing. He and Crawford remained free on bond.
The players were arrested on Dec. 16. They were subsequently suspended from the team and missed the Hokies' Orange Bowl game with Nebraska.
The day after their arrest, they filed a $32 million defamation lawsuit against their accuser. The suit alleges she broke into their apartment hours after the party and demanded money. The suit also claims she slandered the two men and damaged their prospects for playing professional football.
The woman has said she went back to confront the players because they had hurt her.
In July, a federal judge dismissed a civil suit filed by another woman who accused Crawford and teammate Tony Morrison of raping her in their dormitory suite in 1994. No criminal charges were filed in that case. That woman, who sought to invoke the federal Violence Against Women Act, has appealed the dismissal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA TECH RAPE LAWSUIT HEARING