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Former San Diego State and Buffalo Bills punter Matt Araiza, who has been accused of taking part in a gang rape, said he intends to sue attorney Dan Gilleon for defamation.
“I’ve already hired an attorney for it, and things have already been drafted,” he told Andrea Kremer on Tuesday night’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (h/t Mike Florio of Pro Football Focus). “I will never waive my right to sue him. That’s coming.”
While the prosecutor’s office investigating the case found that Araiza was gone from the party when the woman was allegedly gang-raped, Gilleon told Kremer that the finding “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.”
Kremer noted Gilleon’s allegation wasn’t in the civil complaint from last August and seemed like a “far cry” from the original allegation.
“I don’t know,” Gilleon responded. “I think my client is going to get on the stand and tell a story that’s pretty ugly about Matt Araiza, and I think it’s going to be consistent with what that complaint is.”
Araiza, 23, was released from the Bills in August after he and two of his former San Diego State teammates, Zavier Leonard and Nowlin Ewaliko, were accused of gang rape.
No criminal charges have been filed against Araiza, and San Diego State also concluded its own investigation in May and stated that there are no findings against Araiza.
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