Wisconsin Badgers Thread | Fick got the Axe back

[RandyMossIsBoss]

9 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

I'm not even really responding to you on this, because I get where you're coming from, but the "in times like these" take is getting repeated and I don't get it. The complaint says that Cephus was stone sober and these girls were blackout drunk or outright passed out.

This was never a thing that was okay. Seeing someone sober hooking up with someone way too drunk was always a huge red flag, even 10 years ago when I was in school. Hell in Superbad, they even reference, "it's only okay if you're drunk too". This was common knowledge.

No doubt it hasn't been "okay" to do what Cephus (probably) did in ages, but I think perpetrators had a far higher chance of getting away with it due to women being less likely to come forward (that in itself due to being disillusioned w/ the  system or not fully accepting that they were victims,). Do you think women felt as comfortable accusing, and thus tarnishing the reputation, of a big time athlete on campus 10 years ago as they are "these days"? I don't think so, and that's what I was getting at. Hell, I think you could say things are drastically different than they were just a few years ago since the Baylor scandal. Just not a crime you are going to get away with in 2018, whereas 2008 I think there's a decent chance the women don't come forward. That doesn't just make Cephus a bad person, but an astoundingly stupid one at that.

[ramssuperbowl99]

51 minutes ago, RandyMossIsBoss said:

No doubt it hasn't been "okay" to do what Cephus (probably) did in ages, but I think perpetrators had a far higher chance of getting away with it due to women being less likely to come forward (that in itself due to being disillusioned w/ the  system or not fully accepting that they were victims,). Do you think women felt as comfortable accusing, and thus tarnishing the reputation, of a big time athlete on campus 10 years ago as they are "these days"? I don't think so, and that's what I was getting at. Hell, I think you could say things are drastically different than they were just a few years ago since the Baylor scandal. Just not a crime you are going to get away with in 2018, whereas 2008 I think there's a decent chance the women don't come forward. That doesn't just make Cephus a bad person, but an astoundingly stupid one at that.

Yeah that's a fair distinction. I guess I'm just reading those takes of "why would you do this today?" and thinking "why would you do this...ever?".

[Packerraymond]

2 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

I'm not even really responding to you on this, because I get where you're coming from, but the "in times like these" take is getting repeated and I don't get it. The complaint says that Cephus was stone sober and these girls were blackout drunk or outright passed out.

This was never a thing that was okay. Seeing someone sober hooking up with someone way too drunk was always a huge red flag, even 10 years ago when I was in school. Hell in Superbad, they even reference, "it's only okay if you're drunk too". This was common knowledge.

Not questioning you but just asking because I haven't read it, does Cephus admit he was sober in the complaint or is that the girls saying so? I just find it hard to believe with Davis obviously around that the guy just walked in with two blackout drunk girls, stone cold sober himself, late at night and Davis just sat back and laughed about what was happening. 

Very well could be true, just have a hard time associating anyone with that level of stupidity. We're talking more than just not playing football if so, these two idiots need to sit in jail for awhile. 

My hope for the sake of my own mind is that these two were drunk as well, doesn't make what happened right but at least it's not downright evil if that's the case.

[ramssuperbowl99]

55 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

Not questioning you but just asking because I haven't read it, does Cephus admit he was sober in the complaint or is that the girls saying so? I just find it hard to believe with Davis obviously around that the guy just walked in with two blackout drunk girls, stone cold sober himself, late at night and Davis just sat back and laughed about what was happening. 

Very well could be true, just have a hard time associating anyone with that level of stupidity. We're talking more than just not playing football if so, these two idiots need to sit in jail for awhile. 

My hope for the sake of my own mind is that these two were drunk as well, doesn't make what happened right but at least it's not downright evil if that's the case.

The complaint says that Cephus refused part of their drink because he was driving, then drove them to his apartment. He may not have had a BAC of 0.00, but he was for all intents and purposes, stone sober.

[ramssuperbowl99]

16 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Separate from the criminal case, the UW is going to investigate. They're going to interview Cephus and Davis, along with the victims. And the burden of proof in stuff like this is not reasonable guilt.

The UW isn't Baylor or Ohio State, this is going to get addressed and they'll never play for UW again.

Statement from UW:

andherewego.gif

[Packerraymond]

1 hour ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

The complaint says that Cephus refused part of their drink because he was driving, then drove them to his apartment. He may not have had a BAC of 0.00, but he was for all intents and purposes, stone sober.

I see. Will be interesting if a timeline is given Thursday when he appears. Did he get back to the apartment and the incident immediately occur or did they hangout and have more drinks etc... Also driving doesn't really signify anything either sadly, I mean at that age I drove home from some parties with friends/gf that I definitely was not sober.  Will be interesting to get Cephus' side for sure. I'm sure he'll claim that he was drunk too.

[ramssuperbowl99]

4 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

I see. Will be interesting if a timeline is given Thursday when he appears. Did he get back to the apartment and the incident immediately occur or did they hangout and have more drinks etc... Also driving doesn't really signify anything either sadly, I mean at that age I drove home from some parties with friends/gf that I definitely was not sober.  Will be interesting to get Cephus' side for sure. I'm sure he'll claim that he was drunk too.

I agree with you that a more concrete timeline will start to narrow to the if/then type rationale that could give Cephus wiggle room here. The complaint had at least some of that time frame, and I would expect that there is some security camera footage from the Double U as well that shows them leaving given how quickly this was reported to the police. Between either that or potentially, text messages, data from their phones, maybe some testimony from anyone else in Cephus' building, my guess is the prosecution is going to be able to substantiate when Cephus arrived at the bar, when the girls arrived, when they left, and then roughly when they arrived at the apartment.

I think the most reasonable take on Cephus' behavior based on what we have available, is that if he refused a drink because he was driving, he either had a drink or two when he arrived then had that wear off in time to drive, or didn't drink at all. 

[rcon14]

So what I see here is that no matter if Cephus is convicted or not, he will no longer be a part of the program. Simply from what he has admitted to doing, it's already plenty for them to kick him off the team. Danny Davis is a little less clear, but I'd say it's about 50/50 whether or not he remains in the program after what is likely some type of suspension.

[Packerraymond]

1 hour ago, rcon14 said:

So what I see here is that no matter if Cephus is convicted or not, he will no longer be a part of the program. Simply from what he has admitted to doing, it's already plenty for them to kick him off the team. Danny Davis is a little less clear, but I'd say it's about 50/50 whether or not he remains in the program after what is likely some type of suspension.

This year I agree, dont see a quick conclusion to this and I think he's for sure gone this year. If charges are dropped or he's deemed innocent I think the PR would be terrible for kicking someone off the team. Like the NFL got for suspending Zeke. 

Davis I think will play as long as he's not charged, they'll probably gather more info from this case before determining whether he's a real sick scumbag who photographed a sexual assault or an idiot who photographed his buddy with 2 girls. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

3 hours ago, Packerraymond said:

This year I agree, dont see a quick conclusion to this and I think he's for sure gone this year. If charges are dropped or he's deemed innocent I think the PR would be terrible for kicking someone off the team. Like the NFL got for suspending Zeke. 

Davis I think will play as long as he's not charged, they'll probably gather more info from this case before determining whether he's a real sick scumbag who photographed a sexual assault or an idiot who photographed his buddy with 2 girls. 

Cephus isn't going to be "deemed innocent" unless both of his victims recant their testimony and say they lied. Given what has come out, and the fact that 4 months after the incident the DA's office is confident enough in their participation to announce very public charges, we should consider that highly unlikely.

If charges are dropped because the victims refuse to testify for personal reasons (which is common), that doesn't end nor does it really change UW's investigation. Given the more limited burden of proof in that setting, what we already have as public knowledge may be enough to get Cephus expelled. We know he had sex with 2 women, and we know that 2 hours later one of them was throwing up and couldn't open her eyes because she was so intoxicated. That and the text messages saying "raped" paint a picture that might not be clear enough for a jury, but may be enough for UW.

At the end of the day, the only reasonable ends to this suggest Cephus is never playing for Wisconsin again regardless of the court proceedings. When he's officially expelled versus how long he's suspended are up to the school, but that doesn't really matter in the court of public opinion (though you could argue it matters from a student safety perspective).

 

 

Davis may be slightly more complicated. This whole wall of text started because, quite frankly, I'm shocked he hasn't been suspended already given the accusations, and there's really only 2 things I can think of.

1: The cops don't know Davis took the picture, and think Cephus might have had his phone. This explains why it was deleted right away, as well as the DA being noncommittal when asked if charges were going to be filed. This is the simplest explanation.

2: This one is likely wrong. It's because I haven't seen the full copy of the complaint, just read the articles referencing it. This is still the best article I've seen: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/courts/wisconsin-receiver-quintez-cephus-charged-with-sex-assaults-of-two/article_8503f97a-0250-5586-891b-3392bdaee3ec.html

I'm posting a whole bunch of this because the article jumps back and forth in time and context is important:

Quote

According to the complaint:

Police met one of the women at Meriter Hospital about 4:30 a.m. on April 22, and when the initial officer entered her room, he noticed that it smelled heavily of alcohol. The woman was barely able to lift her head and never opened her eyes during her interview, Officer Eric McCarthy noted. At one point she had to stop to throw up.

The woman identified Cephus as the person who she said had assaulted her, at his apartment on Spring Street.

The woman said that she had been introduced to Cephus by a mutual friend the day before, and he asked if she and her friends wanted to meet up later. He said he was going to be at the Double U, a campus-area bar. After that, he said, they could hang out at his apartment.

She told police that after getting a text message from Cephus about 11:30 p.m., she and her friends went to the Double U on 620 University Ave. She said that the second woman was already very drunk at the Double U when she introduced her to Cephus, who “seemed like he was a gentleman.” She said he was sober, and refused some of her drink because he was driving.

The woman also told police that she was “dying,” meaning very drunk. She said she and the other woman were equally drunk when Cephus drove them to his apartment.

The woman said she wasn’t sure how it happened, but she remembered that both she and her friend were naked and that Cephus was assaulting them. She said she couldn’t move, and “literally thought I was going in and out of consciousness.”

Cephus also tried to get the two women to have sex with one another, the woman told police.

At one point she woke up on the floor and saw Cephus and Davis taking pictures of her and laughing as she struggled to get up. She said she told Cephus how to delete photos.

The woman showed Madison police Detective Julie Johnson text messages that she sent to a friend while in Cephus’ bed, and two of them read, “Raped.”

The woman said that the other woman was so out of it that she looked “possessed,” and that her “eyes rolled back.” She said the other woman was hard to understand when she spoke.

The second woman, interviewed by police, said she was drinking at the Double U and was so intoxicated she doesn’t remember whether she was actually introduced to Cephus. She said she has only a fleeting memory of being in Cephus’ car, then sprinting out of his apartment around 2:30 a.m.

“I don’t remember getting home,” she told Johnson. “I don’t remember walking into my apartment. I don’t remember anything else.”

She said the next day she talked on the phone with the first woman, while she was at Meriter Hospital, and the first woman insisted that she have a rape kit done. The woman told police she did not remember having sex with anyone, though.

“I was shocked because I have no memory of it,” she told police. “I was grossed out. We don’t know this guy. I was so very confused. I was thinking how could this happen? I know I would never consent to have sex with someone I didn’t know.”

Davis, who was at the Double U while the two women were there, said he remembered that both were very drunk and that one of them sat on the floor in the middle of the bar and had to be convinced to get up.

Under the Student-Athlete Discipline Policy, during his suspension Cephus will remain on official squad lists and may continue to use the sports medicine facility, the academic support center and the weight training room.

There are 2 bolded snippits with Davis. We know he was at the bar, we know he knew that the girls were much drunker than Cephus was, and we know that he was involved in taking them home with Cephus driving. 

What we don't know, at least when this article is our only guide, is when the pictures were taken. Did he take those pictures while they were going home, but before the assault? "At one point she woke up on the floor" is really vague: that could mean how I read it originally, Cephus was assaulting them or had finished assaulting them, and Davis took the picture. But it could also mean the girls were dressed, getting out of Cephus' car or something on the way up to the apartment, and the assault hadn't started.

Given that is just college kids being idiots, I don't know why thought would be put in a criminal complaint and think it's very unlikely. But I'm trying to figure out why the university didn't just suspend both of them and this is the closest I can get beyond the UW waiting for the cops to be 100% sure that he took the photo.

Edited August 21, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99

[ramssuperbowl99]

First glimpse into Cephus' defense:

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/courts/evidence-will-show-women-who-accused-uw-football-player-were/article_371fafb6-35ed-52d8-a391-d2462ddb21ff.html

Quote

Lawyers for University of Wisconsin wide receiver Quintez Cephus wrote in court filings Tuesday that they believe prosecutors have evidence that shows two women who said Cephus sexually assaulted them in April were not impaired by alcohol as the women have told police.

One of Cephus' lawyers, Stephen Meyer, called the criminal complaint "salacious" in an emailed comment on Monday. On Tuesday he filed a motion which would require prosecutors to preserve specific pieces of evidence that includes surveillance video from various campus-area locations, showing that the two women did not appear to be intoxicated. Prosecutors should also be required to preserve text messages and social media postings that "will support the defense in this case and show that any sexual contact was knowing and consensual," Meyer wrote. 

"The prosecution possesses critical forensic, physical and documentary evidence not disclosed or described by the criminal complaint," Meyer wrote. "Its preservation is essential to ensure all relevant facts are presented and to assure a fair resolution of this case."

EDIT:

Re-posting this quote as well:

Quote

Davis, who was at the Double U while the two women were there, said he remembered that both were very drunk and that one of them sat on the floor in the middle of the bar and had to be convinced to get up.

Have to start wondering if this may put Davis and Cephus at odds with one another.

Edited August 21, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99

[RandyMossIsBoss]

I was a huge Danny Davis fan, after that Orange Bowl I thought we had ourselves a potentially special WR for the next 2-3 years. Really will bum me out that he got himself involved in all of this if it turns out he didn't even commit a crime/take pictures... but just being there is more than enough to kick him from the program, and rightfully so no question.

You can poke a couple holes in the story of the complaints/their timeline, but honestly not much. If I had to guess, this is going to be a pretty clean and cut case, especially if the prosecutors' evidence is as solid as they have lead on.

I'd say there's definitely still a small, but worthwhile, chance that Cephus is found not guilty, but even in that best case scenario I think we've already learned enough to know that he has no place at this program.

[Packerraymond]

Pretty much says to me that he won't be charged by police or they would've waited. I'm sure Chryst has spent more time with police than players and coaches lately sadly.

[ramssuperbowl99]

Not happy with that at all.

[beekay414]

23 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Not happy with that at all.

Is what it is. We really don't know all the details right now in regards to Davis's actual involvement so a suspension for stupidity is all I take this as. If anything more comes out that implicates him, he'll get suspended again or booted. Gotta figure UW knows more than we do.