Matt Ariza ?

[86WARD]

He wasn't proven innocent, he was found not guilty.

Correct. He didn’t have to be proven innocent because he wasn’t even there…lol

[Dwinsgames]

Unless you are reading different reports than have been posted here the only piece of evidence that was entered into the record that punter guy was not there was the testimony of his close friend. There is no video evidence of him leaving the premises; just as there is no video evidence of him being on the premises.

The DA office and investigators did not say they know who did or did not do what, at least in the review piece I read. They said, as all prosecutorial bodies do, that we are not moving forward with this case because we do not think we can successfully prosecute this beyond the requirement of a shadow of a doubt. They have doubts. So they decided to not take a flawed case to trial. That does not mean anyone really knows what version of events took place that night. Likely no one ever will - unless additional evidence is recovered from a phone.

A parking ticket, moving violation, or littering are a big-ass order of magnitude different than being accused of rape. If you wanna equate the two....then by all means. And if you have ever spent time on a college campus or know people who have; then this should make sense to you. Everyone knows the guys and girls that are skirting the line of not only good taste, but moral and legal limits. Most people have the good sense to avoid those folks and those settings. This dude clearly didn't and still doesn't. Every single person I have ever met that acted in a similar fashion spent most of their adult life being a douchebag.

Again...I never said dude did a crime. I am just saying that people familiar with the college setting and lifestyle will look at this and make a variety of intuitive leaps about who this dude is and how he lives his life. The conclusions they draw will not be pretty. I am sure NFL teams and scouts do this constantly since the majority of their new employees are coming from that setting.

The Steelers likely heard and excused a great deal of stuff about a young Ben R because he played QB. It almost catastrophically bit them in the ass. I suspect few teams are going to want to run similar risk for a punter.

READ THIS........

A fuller picture of what police and prosecutors found, however, is now available via a 200-plus-page transcript obtained by Yahoo Sports of a 100-minute meeting in which a deputy district attorney offered a detailed explanation to the girl and her attorneys.
Perhaps most notably, the district attorney’s office concluded that Araiza couldn’t have led the girl into the alleged gang rape because he “left” the home at about 12:30 a.m., an hour prior to when evidence suggested the alleged gang rape would have occurred.
“He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained. Later, Amador stated of the timeline of events, “All I know is that at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.”
Additionally, prosecutors told the girl that video recordings of the incident in the bedroom made it impossible to determine — let alone prosecute anyone — whether there was a gang rape at all that night, rather than consensual sex with the other men.
“In looking at the videos on the sex tape, I absolutely cannot prove any forceable sexual assault based upon what happened,” Amador said.

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I've had you blocked for ages and only checked this message because you quoted me.

Statutory rape is rape. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you. Let's put ourselves in a position to have minors over and get wasted, but you know, those are a bunch of stand-up young men. Sounds like I made a good call on blocking you.

by all means keep me blocked coward ....


Im not even sure why you are here as you never have anything to add anyways , you think your words are gold but the reality is its fools gold

[Dwinsgames]

Jesus, the Duke lacrosse scandal(or shall we say non scandal)was that long ago. Hard to believe all charges completely dropped if there was any smoke. I mean Trump just lost a verdict and the so called victim couldn’t even recall the year it happened and never lodged a complaint. This day and age if they had any evidence the kid would be crucified.

On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges, declaring the three lacrosse players "innocent" and victims of a "tragic rush to accuse"......so yeah its been that long

[Dwinsgames]

as a side note they tried to get Matt Araiza to settle this for 50k, Matt declined stating "Settling is admitting guilt," Araiza noted. "That’s not the truth. That’s not what happened."


so he could have made it go away (like Ben did) for 50k and refused because he is not admitting to something he claims he did not do ...


i'll take 10 of those guys

[Dreegking]

Lotsa long winded diatribes and thoughts on this. He’s wrongly charged. Simple. So Acquitted. Sign him.

her? She wasn’t drunk. Ad that’s chargeable for others. Just a horny chick who lives Dick. So she enjoyed a gangbang. Simple. There’s lotsa that. Nothing to see here at all.

sign him for competition.

[DesertSteel]

Lotsa long winded diatribes and thoughts on this. He’s wrongly charged. Simple. So Acquitted. Sign him.

her? She wasn’t drunk. Ad that’s chargeable for others. Just a horny chick who lives Dick. So she enjoyed a gangbang. Simple. There’s lotsa that. Nothing to see here at all.

sign him for competition.

You’re a wealth of knowledge.

[ETL]

Being charged for something as heinous as rape even if one is completely innocent will have lingering effects. If I claim that I know someone on this board is racist due to interactions I’ve had with them outside of this board … even if I just made it up - it will have lingering effects for the one who was accused. People will see everything they write differently.

Again, no truth to my accusation but still lingering effects to the one accused.

Ariza to me has no baggage. I just see him as a player. If our punting game is was solid I would not be interested in him.

now, if my goal was to have a roster that maximizes marketing and PR goals then yes he has baggage. But I don’t follow the Steelers because of PR.

Steelers gave a second chance to Michael Vick, a guy that forced dogs to be brutally ripped apart (not alleged). I don’t see any hypocrisy in bringing in this punter who was not guilty of any crime.