You probably remember the
rape allegations which swirled around Kentucky basketball recently.
Chuck Hayes, who was identified by his agent as the suspect, was not charged,
and with this article, his accuser's credibility takes a hit.
She had claimed she was given the date rape drug Rohypnol - and told the
police that she had been told at Georgetown Hospital that she had been drugged.
However, the medical records show precisely the opposite: "it was determined that the complaintant's drug screen did not reveal the presence of Rohypnol derivatives in her system."
It's hard to read this any other way than that she lied. There probably
is another explanation, but if the hospital said no, and she told the police the
hospital said yes, well, it's hard to see how else to read that.
They had met recently and Hayes had called her cell phone to offer to visit
her son's school, which apparently upset her husband. When they decided to
meet for lunch, they ended up back at Wildcat Lodge, where whatever happened
happened between 12:30 and 2:30 p.m.
We're all for athletes and celebrities living under the same laws the
rest of us do, and the sooner the better. But it's a double-edged
sword. An accusation against a Chuck Hayes, or a Shelden Williams, which
may even be thoroughly discredited, lives on.
We're sympathetic to the position athletes are in, because they are
vulnerable to all sorts of things, but at the same time, if you avoid these
sorts of situations, if you don't have a married woman alone in your dorm
room, and you don't put yourself in situations where your celebrity can work
against you, life will be a lot easier.
By the same token, knowing the sense of entitlement which pervades athletes
and celebrities in general, although certainly not universally, not getting into
a compromising or potentially dangerous situation would be a wise move.
Anyway, at this point, given the allegations and the available facts, it's
hard to see how Chuck Hayes should pay for this.