UGA freshman named in federal lawsuit for "bullying incident"

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A highly recruited Alabama high school five-star offensive lineman now playing for the Georgia Bulldogs is one of three accused in a federal lawsuit of being part of a bullying incident.

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The plaintiff, a minor referred to under the fictitious name John Doe in the lawsuit, alleges fellow students allowed him and encouraged him to unknowingly drink from a Powerade bottle that allegedly contained Clay Webb’s semen, according to the lawsuit. Webb was one of the top Alabama high school recruits in 2018. He is now a member of the Georgia football team.

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The plaintiff is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit names Webb, another student, and baseball coach Wesley Brooks as defendants.

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On Oct. 8, 2018, the plaintiff - suing by way of his father, Richard Doe — was with former Oxford High School students Webb and the other student in the “field house” showering after morning workouts during regular school hours, according to the complaint. Athletes from several different sports were present. John Doe and the other student were both members of the baseball team at the time of the incident, and Webb was a star player for the Oxford Yellow Jackets football team. Oxford High School administration also did not respond to various phone calls and emails to AL.com for comment.

The complaint states that Webb “masturbated and ejaculated into a Powerade bottle" at an unknown time, and multiple students, including the other student, knew it had been soiled when the plaintiff asked who’s bottle was on top of the lockers, the complaint said.

John Doe asked another student who owned the bottle, according to the lawsuit, and that student advised the plaintiff not to drink it. He then asked the entire locker room who the bottle’s owner was to which the other student responded, “Yeah, that’s mine from last week,” the complaint states. “Don’t worry about it, you can have it.”

After drinking the entire soiled bottle of Powerade, students began laughing at John Doe, according to the court document. Another student witness who didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment told the victim that the bottle contained Webb’s semen. John Doe tried to force himself to throw up, according to the complaint, and he then called his father to pick him up.

“I think [Webb] was looking to get somebody. I don’t know if he had [the plaintiff] in mind,” plaintiff attorney Eric Artrip told AL.com. “[The other student] did have [the plaintiff] in mind cause he had a chance to stop it and didn’t.”

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Word spread through the school and the plaintiff began facing severe bullying, the lawsuit states. He was called various homophobic slurs and sexually explicit insults by classmates and members of the football team, according to the complaint.

Students threw and rolled energy drink bottles at him with “insulting notes attached.” And on Nov. 1, 2018, almost a month after the incident, a car drove by the plaintiff’s home and threw a Gatorade bottle into the yard and yelled insults, according to the complaint. This alleged harassment continued throughout the rest of the 2018-19 school year and throughout the summer break.

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