Michigan State Dismisses Three Players Charged In Sexual Assault Case

Judge Richard Ball of Lansing’s 54B District Court signed three warrants Tuesday morning, authorizing the arrest of a trio of Michigan State football players—sophomore wideout Donnie Corley, sophomore defensive end Josh King, and redshirt freshman Demetric Vance were all charged for their roles in a January sexual assault.

King will be charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, third-degree criminal sexual conduct, and capturing an image of an unclothed person; Corley and Vance will face third-degree criminal sexual conduct charges. All three players have been dismissed from the Michigan State football team, regardless of the outcome of their cases, according to a statement released by Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio.

The signed warrants made the identities of the three athletes public for the first time since Michigan State university police began their investigation over four months ago. The investigation, which MSU police chief Jim Dunlap said consisted of over 100 interviews, resulted from a Jan. 16 on-campus report of rape and led to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office announcing sexual assault charges for the three suspended players—not fired staffer Curtis Blackwell, who, according to an external review of the football program, failed to report the assault—on Monday. Jones Day, the firm that conducted the review, found that Dantonio and the rest of his staff followed university policy in reporting the assault.

Details of the case were also made public for the first time since the initiation of the police investigation in the Tuesday morning court session. According to , university police department detective Chad Davis testified that King pulled the woman into a bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex on him; he then raped her before he forced the woman to perform oral sex on Corley and Vance, according to Davis.

The detective said King was the one who first asked her to step into the bathroom, saying he wanted to speak with her “somewhere quiet.” All three denied having any sort of sexual interaction with the woman, but a video of the alleged rape was found on King’s phone—the victim also did not consent to being filmed at any point.

The woman’s lawyer has not yet responded to a request for comment; we will update this post when we hear back.