Well, of course the alleged victim realized she couldn’t win a civil suit against Winston. After all, as Winston said after the Rose Bowl, “Losing isn’t really in my vocabulary”.
Oh, wait…
FSU got totally outplayed by Oregon, but Winston didn’t have a bad game overall. 29/45, 348 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. He does need to keep cool under pressure. The arguing with his coach wasn’t good. An ugly flashback to the shoving the official incident in the BC game.
Erica Kinsman has come forward in a ‘documentary’ about sexual abuse on campus. I’ve really got to see this.
This was posted by the AP about 13 minutes ago:[
Good. I’m actually shocked to see FSU fighting Erica’s ridiculous lawsuit rather than just paying her to go away. Universities need to take a strong stand against these frivolous lawsuits or else they’ll be a line out the door of false accusations looking to partake in the money trough.
Erica loses again. This case should finally be over. The only recourse left for her is to either file a civil suit or for her to seek judicial review.
I find it also interesting that Ray McDonald will sue the woman who accused him of rape last year. I’d like to see more of these suits to serve as a deterrent to false allegations and gold digging.
So Erica files her civil suit, conveniently right before the NFL draft.
I was right, she’s a gold digging liar. I can only hope that Winston’s attorney drags her name through the mud and slut shames her until she’s in tears.
Regrettably, Winston will probably pay the extortion to make her go away .
VICE has a very good story about the Kinsman civil suit, including the lawsuit itself (.PDF of course).
Key bit IMO is that Kinsman’s legal team seems to have found the cab driver who took them from the bar to Winston’s place; he could testify as to her appearance/coherence is the speculation. My guess is that this person will get torn to shreds on the stand by Winston’s lawyers, tho; you know he’s going to have very good lawyers.
I think it would be easy for even an average trial lawyer to destroy the testimony of a cab driver about some drunken passengers from 2.5 years ago. I highly doubt this will actually go to trial as Erica’s multiple versions of her story will surely be used against her.
I’m curious. What kind of evidence would convince you that Winston is a bit rapey? Surely if he settles the case, you wouldn’t accept that as evidence, because you’d conclude he’s just paying her off to go away. And if it does go to trial, I can’t imagine the outcome would influence you. So what, absent a confession, would make you think anything other than this woman is a complete and utter liar?
There’s nothing that could convince me, outside of a confession, that Winston raped Kinsman. Her story has changed so many times. If I gave her all the benefits of the doubt, I could say that she’s totally screwed up in the head and that her aunt attorney and racist upbringing have caused her to not even know what the truth is .
Can you see how that would make someone conclude that you’re not likely to be a good judge on this matter, and that your opinion is easily discounted?
From the beginning of this story, it looked like ESPN and the New York Times were eager to find a story about some small town police force covering up heinous crimes committed by football players. The early coverage of this story was a complete distortion, leaving out Erica’s multiple versions of what happened. The great 2013 season showed that Winston was very likely a high NFL draft pick. Enter the aunt attorney along with sportswriter Matt Baker of the Tampa Bay Times, an acquaintance of the Kinsman family.
I didn’t just immediately decide that Winston was innocent and that Kinsman was a liar. After learning enough about the case, I came to that conclusion.
I think I’ve been proven right. No criminal charges against Winston, no FSU discipline, no title IX violations. Now the civil suit comes out right before the draft. Even if people think he’s guilty, you have to admit the timing of the suit is quite convenient.
On a side note, Winston changed his story about the crab-leg incident at the Publix grocery store. Instead of shop-lifting the food, as originally told, he now claims that there was a Publix employee that would hook him and other players up with free food on multiple occasions. On that particular instance he was given the crab-legs and someone else saw him walking out with them and notified security.
Pretty smart of Winston to realize that being charged with shop-lifting was less impactful on his future than receiving improper benefits as a player which is an NCAA violation.
In which case, the questions become:
(a) Did the employee have any connection to Florida State;
(b) How much were the crab legs worth;
(c) When did this first happen?
The only real problem I can see for Florida State is if the answers are (a) yes, (b) more than $100 (or if Winston decides not to donate the amount to charity), and (c) before the 2013 season (January 2014) BCS championship game, in which case FSU has to give the trophy back. Nobody would really care about having to give back, say, the 2014 ACC title, and it shouldn’t affect his Heisman either.
A small, but potentially helpful move for Winston as Erica’s civil suit is transferred from state court to federal court. It’s also interesting to note that Erica is seeking over $75,000 in damages. Must have been such an awful experience that only a 6 figure plus check will make it all ok. She’s made herself such a distraction that I’m not thinking even an under the table ‘go away’ payment isn’t happening.
Are you counting the dollar sign ($) as a “figure”?
Nope, I’m aware that $75,000 is 5 figures. However, Erica’s earlier extortion attempt was for a figure in the millions, so I think it’s safe to say that she’s looking for at least six figures to compensate for her ‘rape’
I think it’s safe to say that your conclusion is ridiculous, since all the available evidence shows that in fact she is seeking a 5 figure compensation.
At any rate, Winston has now filed a counterclaim.
I’m ecstatic that Winston filed the counter suit. This woman has ruined his life and is going to make endorsement deals very difficult to get. This has dragged on for so long with all of Erica’s losses in court, the counter suit will allow Winston to get his name out of the mud. There’s nothing I’d love better than to see an unemployed college drop out paying money to a millionaire NFL quarterback.