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SEC and LSU president were warned two years ago about LSU's inaction
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:42 pm
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:42 pm
Two years ago, the NCAA, SEC and LSU’s president and top legal counsel were all warned that LSU’s athletics department had potentially run afoul of federal law over its handling of allegations that a football player was physically abusive toward the tennis player he was dating.
In Oct. 18, 2018 letters to the NCAA and to the SEC, David Lewis — father of former LSU tennis star Jade Lewis — told the governing bodies that LSU officials had repeatedly failed to take appropriate action after they were confronted months earlier with allegations that wide receiver Drake Davis was abusing their daughter.
Herb Vincent, the SEC’s associate commissioner for communications, sent a response that was dated Oct. 26, 2018 on SEC letterhead. In it, Vincent confirmed that he received the letter, along with another one sent to the NCAA.
“The letters have been forwarded to General Counsel at LSU for proper attention,” Vincent wrote. LSU’s general counsel at the time was Tom Skinner.
Vincent confirmed Wednesday that the SEC had received and “directly responded” to two separate communications that the Lewises sent during the fall of 2018. Both times, the SEC told Lewis that his information was being passed along to LSU officials, Vincent said.
“Upon learning of the allegations contained in Mr. Lewis’ initial letter, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey promptly informed LSU’s President of the allegations and we also shared Mr. Lewis’ letters to the SEC and NCAA with LSU’s General Counsel,” Vincent wrote in a statement to The Advocate.
“LSU confirmed to the SEC that the university was conducting a Title IX investigation,” added Vincent, who previously served as an LSU senior associate athletic director and vice chancellor for university relations. “We were informed that the assault allegations had been reported to the police, and that criminal charges were pending.”
Federal Title IX laws prohibit universities and their athletic departments from discriminating against students based on their sex, and the rules are meant to trigger investigations into allegations of dating violence, sexual assault and other harassment.
Though LSU conducted a Title IX investigation into Davis, it's unclear whether anyone at the NCAA, SEC or within LSU investigated — or doled out any punishments — over Lewis' allegations that administrators had failed to follow up on abuse allegations. Lewis said Julia and Michael Sell — LSU’s tennis coaches, who are husband and wife — sat on abuse allegations, and it's unclear whether LSU ever investigated those claims.
Alexander, now president of Oregon State University, said through a spokesman Wednesday that he received the communication from the SEC and "acknowledged that LSU’s Title IX office had already commissioned an independent investigation into this matter" the previous spring. Alexander released a letter last month reminding Oregon State students and employees to report sexual harassment on campus, but the letter did not mention the LSU scandal or his role in it.
An NCAA spokeswoman said confidentiality rules prevented her from committing on “current, pending or potential investigations.” Asked about past investigations, given that the letter was sent two years ago, she did not respond. Mark Emmert, the CEO of the NCAA, whom the letter was addressed to, is a former chancellor of LSU.
Skinner, LSU’s former legal counsel, did not return messages. He left LSU for the University of San Diego shortly after the departure of Alexander.
But police reports show Skinner was aware of the Davis case well before he received the letter forwarded by Vincent in October 2018. Skinner was present when police interviewed a football player on Sept. 10, 2018, who reported that Davis was continuing to abuse Lewis after his first arrest. Police arrested Davis again nearly a week later.
In the three-page letter that David Lewis sent to the NCAA and SEC, he outlined seven potential recruiting and other rule violations related to the LSU tennis team, and he warned the officials about his daughter’s abuse.
“It is with tremendous distress that I report the most grievous of these violations,” David Lewis wrote, in a letter co-signed by his wife, Rosaria. “Not only do I believe they are violations of the NCAA rules/Title IX violations but are also a complete violation of the trust that my family and I placed in LSU, the LSU Athletic Department, and in the Sells as Jade's coaches.”
The Sells did not respond to an interview request from The Advocate. In a statement posted on social media that they have since taken down, they denied the allegations first made about them in a USA Today investigation published Nov. 16 about LSU’s failures to properly investigate allegations of sexual assault and violence on campus.
Police reports from Davis’ eventual arrest say that he had punched Lewis in the stomach in May 2017 when she tried to remove some of her belongings from his home. That same month, Lewis played in the NCAA women’s tennis tournament and the NCAA singles championship tournament.
David Lewis wrote that he’d learned his daughter had been abused in 2017, during her first — and what was meant to be her only — season on the LSU tennis team before she turned pro. Lewis wrote that he called Mike Sell “with the expectation that appropriate action would be taken, and this would be reported to Title IX.” But he wrote that Sell failed to take him seriously, and the records that LSU has provided about the Davis case do not show any action being taken to report his abuse to police or Title IX until 2018.
“As planned, Jade turned Pro in 2017,” her father wrote in his letter. “She returned to LSU in March of 2018, under the supervision of the Sells, who had full knowledge of the abusive relationship she had been in with the aforementioned LSU football player … It is our understanding that Jade sought help from someone in the athletic department, yet surprisingly, none of this was brought to the attention of the authorities or Title IX.”
Both police reports and the letter indicate that Davis grew more abusive in 2018. He punched Lewis so hard in April of 2018 that she had fractured ribs. In incidents later that year, he choked her until she turned purple, and threatened to kill her, according to arrest documents.
Davis even admitted to some of the abuse in an April 2018 text message to LSU’s executive deputy director of athletics, Verge Ausberry, in which Davis wrote that he “hit her in the stomach.” Ausberry said he called Davis afterward and that Davis recanted the confession, but Ausberry did nothing further to follow up on it afterward or to check on Lewis, which multiple experts have said was a violation of Title IX and other reporting requirements.
Davis wasn’t arrested until August 2018. That did not stop his abusive behavior. Lewis’ friends and Davis’ teammates told police that he continued to abuse her, and Davis was arrested again. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to two counts of battery and one count of violating a protective order.
Lewis’ father wrote that he was shocked Davis “was allowed to remain on LSU campus subsequent to his release, under certain conditions.”
Jade Lewis also said that four of her LSU tennis teammates reported her abuse between May 2017 and August 2018 to Julia Sell, and that Sell “knew the full truth and simply chose to stand by.”
Continued at The Advocate
In Oct. 18, 2018 letters to the NCAA and to the SEC, David Lewis — father of former LSU tennis star Jade Lewis — told the governing bodies that LSU officials had repeatedly failed to take appropriate action after they were confronted months earlier with allegations that wide receiver Drake Davis was abusing their daughter.
Herb Vincent, the SEC’s associate commissioner for communications, sent a response that was dated Oct. 26, 2018 on SEC letterhead. In it, Vincent confirmed that he received the letter, along with another one sent to the NCAA.
“The letters have been forwarded to General Counsel at LSU for proper attention,” Vincent wrote. LSU’s general counsel at the time was Tom Skinner.
Vincent confirmed Wednesday that the SEC had received and “directly responded” to two separate communications that the Lewises sent during the fall of 2018. Both times, the SEC told Lewis that his information was being passed along to LSU officials, Vincent said.
“Upon learning of the allegations contained in Mr. Lewis’ initial letter, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey promptly informed LSU’s President of the allegations and we also shared Mr. Lewis’ letters to the SEC and NCAA with LSU’s General Counsel,” Vincent wrote in a statement to The Advocate.
“LSU confirmed to the SEC that the university was conducting a Title IX investigation,” added Vincent, who previously served as an LSU senior associate athletic director and vice chancellor for university relations. “We were informed that the assault allegations had been reported to the police, and that criminal charges were pending.”
Federal Title IX laws prohibit universities and their athletic departments from discriminating against students based on their sex, and the rules are meant to trigger investigations into allegations of dating violence, sexual assault and other harassment.
Though LSU conducted a Title IX investigation into Davis, it's unclear whether anyone at the NCAA, SEC or within LSU investigated — or doled out any punishments — over Lewis' allegations that administrators had failed to follow up on abuse allegations. Lewis said Julia and Michael Sell — LSU’s tennis coaches, who are husband and wife — sat on abuse allegations, and it's unclear whether LSU ever investigated those claims.
Alexander, now president of Oregon State University, said through a spokesman Wednesday that he received the communication from the SEC and "acknowledged that LSU’s Title IX office had already commissioned an independent investigation into this matter" the previous spring. Alexander released a letter last month reminding Oregon State students and employees to report sexual harassment on campus, but the letter did not mention the LSU scandal or his role in it.
An NCAA spokeswoman said confidentiality rules prevented her from committing on “current, pending or potential investigations.” Asked about past investigations, given that the letter was sent two years ago, she did not respond. Mark Emmert, the CEO of the NCAA, whom the letter was addressed to, is a former chancellor of LSU.
Skinner, LSU’s former legal counsel, did not return messages. He left LSU for the University of San Diego shortly after the departure of Alexander.
But police reports show Skinner was aware of the Davis case well before he received the letter forwarded by Vincent in October 2018. Skinner was present when police interviewed a football player on Sept. 10, 2018, who reported that Davis was continuing to abuse Lewis after his first arrest. Police arrested Davis again nearly a week later.
In the three-page letter that David Lewis sent to the NCAA and SEC, he outlined seven potential recruiting and other rule violations related to the LSU tennis team, and he warned the officials about his daughter’s abuse.
“It is with tremendous distress that I report the most grievous of these violations,” David Lewis wrote, in a letter co-signed by his wife, Rosaria. “Not only do I believe they are violations of the NCAA rules/Title IX violations but are also a complete violation of the trust that my family and I placed in LSU, the LSU Athletic Department, and in the Sells as Jade's coaches.”
The Sells did not respond to an interview request from The Advocate. In a statement posted on social media that they have since taken down, they denied the allegations first made about them in a USA Today investigation published Nov. 16 about LSU’s failures to properly investigate allegations of sexual assault and violence on campus.
Police reports from Davis’ eventual arrest say that he had punched Lewis in the stomach in May 2017 when she tried to remove some of her belongings from his home. That same month, Lewis played in the NCAA women’s tennis tournament and the NCAA singles championship tournament.
David Lewis wrote that he’d learned his daughter had been abused in 2017, during her first — and what was meant to be her only — season on the LSU tennis team before she turned pro. Lewis wrote that he called Mike Sell “with the expectation that appropriate action would be taken, and this would be reported to Title IX.” But he wrote that Sell failed to take him seriously, and the records that LSU has provided about the Davis case do not show any action being taken to report his abuse to police or Title IX until 2018.
“As planned, Jade turned Pro in 2017,” her father wrote in his letter. “She returned to LSU in March of 2018, under the supervision of the Sells, who had full knowledge of the abusive relationship she had been in with the aforementioned LSU football player … It is our understanding that Jade sought help from someone in the athletic department, yet surprisingly, none of this was brought to the attention of the authorities or Title IX.”
Both police reports and the letter indicate that Davis grew more abusive in 2018. He punched Lewis so hard in April of 2018 that she had fractured ribs. In incidents later that year, he choked her until she turned purple, and threatened to kill her, according to arrest documents.
Davis even admitted to some of the abuse in an April 2018 text message to LSU’s executive deputy director of athletics, Verge Ausberry, in which Davis wrote that he “hit her in the stomach.” Ausberry said he called Davis afterward and that Davis recanted the confession, but Ausberry did nothing further to follow up on it afterward or to check on Lewis, which multiple experts have said was a violation of Title IX and other reporting requirements.
Davis wasn’t arrested until August 2018. That did not stop his abusive behavior. Lewis’ friends and Davis’ teammates told police that he continued to abuse her, and Davis was arrested again. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to two counts of battery and one count of violating a protective order.
Lewis’ father wrote that he was shocked Davis “was allowed to remain on LSU campus subsequent to his release, under certain conditions.”
Jade Lewis also said that four of her LSU tennis teammates reported her abuse between May 2017 and August 2018 to Julia Sell, and that Sell “knew the full truth and simply chose to stand by.”
Continued at The Advocate
This post was edited on 12/2/20 at 12:47 pm
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:47 pm to Murph4HOF
Wow. We are all complicit. The SEC knew 2 years ago and did nothing. Thanks for the link.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:47 pm to Murph4HOF
This case should concern LSU more than the Guice allegations IMO
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:50 pm to lsu711
quote:Would be nice if Greg Sankey went down because of this LSU stuff.
The SEC knew 2 years ago and did nothing.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:53 pm to Murph4HOF
Anyone involved in any sort of cover up or lack of action should be fired immediately and any other appropriate action beyond that.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:54 pm to TigerLunatik
f king will be fired at oregon st
Posted on 12/2/20 at 12:57 pm to Murph4HOF
Is this before or after the change at AD at LSU? If before, Woodward had to be aware
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:00 pm to Murph4HOF
Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it F King?
Enjoy the unemployment line~
Enjoy the unemployment line~
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:03 pm to ColoradoAg
quote:
Is this before or after the change at AD at LSU?
quote:
LSU hires new athletic director Woodward away from Texas A&M
April 18, 2019
Looks like all of this stuff was going on before Woodward was hired.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:04 pm to Murph4HOF
We just thought LSU has had a hard year. We ain’t seen nothing yet
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:05 pm to Murph4HOF
LSU's stench starting to spread to other places. I knew LSU's uncleanliness would affect others.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:06 pm to TigerLunatik
quote:
Looks like all of this stuff was going on before Woodward was hired.
Thanks. I always liked him, so would hate for him to be complicit
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:08 pm to Murph4HOF
David Lewis is a pussy. If someone was abusing my daughter, the last thing I would do is send a letter to anyone. I would personally take care of the issue and then hide the MFer's body in the swamp. Probably keep him alive for a few weeks so I could have some fun with him
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:10 pm to Murph4HOF
I just refuse to believe that a Joe Alleva run athletic department would screw up a sexual assault case.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:11 pm to LC412000
That's really the only thing that gives me some pause about all of this. I have a daughter that age and if any thing close to this happened to her everyone would hear about. If I had to I would goto every local TV reporter and every reporter at The Advocate. If that didn't work I would be making flyers and posting signs all over the city. How are we just starting to hear about this stuff years later?
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:12 pm to LC412000
quote:
Probably keep him alive for a few weeks so I could have some fun with him
Make him squeal like a pig I suppose
I’m sure you would go kidnap the guy, beat him to death and then put him in the swamp because you’re such a badass like that. Then you will be some hairy dudes bitch in the penitentiary
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:13 pm to TigerLunatik
I find it odd that Jade actively follows and liked one of Drake Davis' Tweets two days before all this came out.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:19 pm to Murph4HOF
LSU tennis coaches are screwed and Oregon State in going to need a new President.
Posted on 12/2/20 at 1:25 pm to nicholastiger
quote:Where they allowed a guy who raped a relative to play baseball? That Oregon State?
f king will be fired at oregon st
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