Matt Araiza, a free-agent punter who was cleared of criminal wrongdoing when he was accused of rape last year, revealed he plans on suing the lawyer of the accuser for defamation.
Araiza appeared on “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” on HBO. He said he would not settle the pending civil lawsuit that he is up against and would sue attorney Dan Gilleon for defamation.
“I’ve already hired an attorney for it, and things have already been drafted,” he told “Real Sports” correspondent Andrea Kremer. “I will never waive my right to sue him. That’s coming.”
Araiza’s mother, Kerry, also spoke about the potential defamation suit.
“This attorney and plaintiff have taken absolutely everything from Matt. His job, his reputation, his name, his livelihood,” she said, via Awful Announcing. “This child of ours is sitting home, unemployed. Unemployable. Cannot get back into the NFL. He has no idea what his future will be. So it’s cost him everything.”
Gilleon vowed to move forward with the civil lawsuit against Araiza. He also appeared to revise why they were suing him after authorities in California concluded that Araiza was gone from the party where the alleged gang rape took place.
“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 added. “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.”
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