Matt Araiza has a new lease on life and it has everything to do with him not taking a deal in his rape case.
A civil lawsuit was filed in the San Diego County Superior Court last year, accusing Araiza and two other men of raping a high school senior at an off-campus party.
Ten months after former Buffalo Bills punter Matt Araiza was accused of participating in a 2021 gang rape, new details have emerged about why the football player was not convicted of any charges.
The former Buffalo Bills punter is not settling his rape case after he sent an audio recording of the woman who was allegedly raped, and in it she references video of her sexual encounters on the night of the incident.
Araiza’s agent says they have sent the recording to roughly 20 NFL teams in the hope that he gets picked up again.
“I know the teams know the true facts,” Araiza said to USA Today Sports.
“They’ve heard the audio. They know this isn’t true. It’s that we need the public to understand as well. Because I think teams have a fear that if they sign me, there will be a little bit of backlash because the public has been told things that aren’t true.”
The lawsuit, filed in 2022, accused Araiza of having sex with an intoxicated 17-year-old girl outside of a home and then bringing her inside, where she was allegedly further assaulted by Araiza and former San Diego State football players Zavier Leonard and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko.
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Araiza later admitted to having consensual sex with the victim that night and again when speaking to USA Today Sports. “We had a brief encounter, and it is absolutely not how it’s been portrayed in the media or the lawsuit,” he told the outlet.
The victim submitted video recordings from the night of the alleged incident to authorities.
The district attorney’s office used video footage to determine that Araiza wasn’t even at the scene of the attack when the alleged gang rape happened, based on the “physical characteristics” of the men shown in the video.
Araiza’s accuser is not happy as she says she was too intoxicated to consent.
“I just don’t think that’s fair at all to look at these short clips that were already way into this assault already happening and make a judgment on that and say that that was consensual,” the woman said.
