Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Former Buffalo Bills punter Matt Araiza will not be charged in connection with an alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at an off-campus party last year when he played football for San Diego State University, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said no charges will be filed against any of Araiza's former Aztec teammates who were also accused in the reported assault in October 2021.
“I am grateful that the district attorney and the San Diego Police Department have discovered all the facts and found no criminal wrongdoing. I am excited to continue my NFL career," Araiza said in a statement issued by his agent, Joe Linta.
The decision followed an investigation involving more than 35 witness interviews and evidence derived from 10 search warrants that included cellphone data and video from the night in question, the DA's office said in a statement.
“Ultimately, prosecutors determined it is clear the evidence does not support the filing of criminal charges and there is no path to a potential criminal conviction. Prosecutors can only file charges when they ethically believe they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the statement said.
Araiza’s lawyer, Kerry Armstrong, said he and his client were “elated" by what he called the right decision.
“It is my hope that Matt can join an NFL team again and do the thing that he does best—punt footballs eighty yards down the field,” Armstrong said.
The accuser’s attorney Dan Gilleon tweeted, “I am never surprised when a prosecutor does not file sexual assault charges when the victim was intoxicated.”
“It’s a very rare case where the criminal justice system achieves anything satisfactory for the victim of a sexual assault,” Gilleon continued. “Prosecutors cannot file charges unless they can get a unanimous decision (from jurors) who cannot vote to convict unless they’re convinced beyond any reasonable doubt.”
However, Gilleon said he expected a better verdict in his client’s civil lawsuit, where “the focus is on the harm defendants caused her.”
“The defendants will have no sympathizers once the evidence comes out,” he wrote.
The Buffalo Bills declined to comment.
The Bills released the rookie punter in August just days after backing Araiza based on the findings of what the team called its “thorough examination” of the allegations included in the lawsuit.
The accuser, now 18, alleged in the suit that Araiza, then 21, had sex with her in a side yard at an off-campus residence before bringing her into a bedroom where a group of men took turns raping her. She said she went in and out of consciousness as the men assaulted her for about 90 minutes.
She told her friends that night that she'd been raped and reported the assault to police the following day, according to the court filing.
The lawsuit named Araiza along with two former Aztec teammates who are no longer with the team.
The university has been heavily criticized for delaying an administrative inquiry into the allegations. San Diego State officials have said they deferred investigating at the request of police for fear that conducting their own might harm the criminal investigation.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.