Colts GM Chris Ballard says team knew rookie Bobby Okereke had been accused of sexual assault
Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard told reporters on Wednesday that the team knew about a previous sexual assault allegation against rookie Bobby Okereke when he was drafted.
Okereke, a third-round pick out of Stanford, was accused when he was a freshman at the school.
‘Bobby was very honest’
Ballard explained that when the Colts met with Okereke at the Senior Bowl in January, they asked him the question they ask all prospective draft picks.
“‘Hey, is there anything in your background that we need to know about and research?’” Ballard said, via Stephen Holder of The Athletic. “And Bobby was very honest.”
Okereke was accused by another student in 2015; the case was handled through the university’s Title IX process, and ultimately he wasn’t disciplined.
“When we looked at it and talked about it, in talking to the young man, [it’s] an incident from four years ago, no discipline by the university, he was never charged with a crime, and then you look at his track record from that point until now … from 2015 to 2019 in the draft, everything we gathered and the high recommendations we got, we felt it appropriate to take him,” Ballard said.
High standard meant no discipline
A New York Times story from December 2016 outlines the details of the case, though neither the accuser or accused are named; the Times says only that it was a member of the football team that was facing the charges.
The Fountain Hopper, a Stanford student newspaper that’s independent from the school, was first to identify Okereke as the accused; on Wednesday, one of Ballard’s responses indicated that the Times’ story was about Okereke as well.
The Times reported that the alleged victim was a sophomore when she met a member of the football team at a party one Saturday night. The pair went to her room, where she said he raped her; Okereke maintained their encounter was consensual.
Two different five-person panels, drawn from a pool of Stanford administrators, faculty and students, were convened and learned the details of the case.
Both times, three of the five panelists – a majority – decided against Okereke. At many colleges and universities, that would have been enough.
However, Stanford requires a 4-1 decision, a high bar set by few other schools, to enact discipline, which would have been expulsion. The accuser told the Times she wanted a no-contact order, saying she knew he would never be suspended or expelled.
Ballard said the Colts spoke with Okereke several times, and also spoke to people associated with Stanford and people “really close” to Okereke, and the team also reviewed the results of the Title IX investigation.
‘This is sensitive’
Okereke graduated from Stanford with a degree in management and engineering, and served as a team captain; his accuser left the school out of fear and it is unclear if she returned.
Ballard employed the too-often-used “I have daughters” line when explaining why the Colts drafted Okereke.
“I get it. I have three daughters. This is sensitive,” he said. “I was raised by my mom only. I get where the sensitivity is. We’re sensitive to it. I don’t want anybody to think we’re not. This incident occurred four years ago and there was no discipline by the university and no charges by the police.”
The accuser opted to adjudicate the matter through the school rather than law enforcement, a not-uncommon decision for college students.
Ballard said these kinds of cases can be hard for outside parties to evaluate.
“They’re very difficult, not only from our perspective trying to get the information, but from a university perspective and then you’ve got a he said-she said incident,” he said. “And, look, I don’t want to sit here and act like we don’t have sympathy for both sides of it.
“But as I’ve said, it happened four years ago, and because there’s no charges and because there’s no disciplinary action by the university, and then his track record from everything we know to this point has been good.”
Ballard said the team didn’t reveal the accusation earlier because he thought it was inappropriate given that Okereke wasn’t disciplined.
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