UA says it knew of Jayden de Laura's 2018 sex-assault case and QB's status 'unchanged'
University of Arizona officials said Friday they have known since fall 2022 that quarterback Jayden de Laura was named in a 2018 sexual-assault case in Hawaii and determined he would remain on the team.
De Laura’s status as UA quarterback has not changed, the UA athletic department said, after court records filed this week publicly revealed de Laura has settled a civil lawsuit in the case and, according to the lawsuit, previously pleaded guilty in juvenile court to second-degree sexual assault.
“In the fall of 2022 after a civil complaint was filed against football student-athlete Jayden de Laura, the University of Arizona first became aware of a 2018 incident involving de Laura which occurred while he was in high school in Hawaii,” the UA statement reads. “After reviewing the matter, the determination was made to allow de Laura to continue as a student-athlete and his status remains unchanged.”
The civil complaint was filed on Dec. 2, 2021, about a month before de Laura transferred from Washington State University to Arizona.
The University of Wisconsin released a similar statement Thursday regarding de Laura’s high school teammate, safety Kamo’i Latu, who also was named in the civil lawsuit. UW said it was unaware of “the matter being reported involving Latu” when he enrolled at the school in 2022, became aware in the fall and that Latu remains a member of the Badgers football team.
Vetting process unclear
De Laura entered the NCAA transfer portal on Jan. 7, 2022. He committed to Arizona on Jan. 10. The December 2021 filing of the lawsuit in Hawaii was publicly available in online court records.
UA’s statement Friday did not say whether the university conducted a background check of de Laura when he transferred.
In an interview with the Star, Adam Gorney, the recruiting director for Rivals, a website that covers football and basketball recruiting, spoke about common vetting practices schools use while recruiting. His comments were not in reference to the situation involving Arizona and de Laura.
“Even at the highest levels, college football is a niche job,” Gorney said. “A lot of guys know each other. The entire Pac-12 ... would probably be aware of any issues any kid had. If Washington State is recruiting a quarterback, UCLA or Arizona, they probably have the same info that every other school has.”
“Sometimes it depends on how good the player is,” Gorney added. “There’s a balance, or imbalance, between taking really good players and taking good players with checkered pasts because they can score touchdowns and run real fast.”
Moore: Arizona football needs to suspend quarterback Jayden de Laura over sex assault case
Unlike the recruiting of high school players, which can last years, Gorney said a program “almost certainly” can’t meticulously screen every player in the portal. The competition for top players is intense, and decisions are made quickly.
“Once you get into a transfer-portal situation and you have a necessity at a position, I would find it hard to believe, if you didn’t know much about the kid’s background, that you could find out all the things you’d want to find out about in a three-day or week period,” Gorney said.
“In a recruiting world where coaches are busier than ever, hosting kids, keeping roster together, traveling to high schools — and throw on top of that all these transfers — I find it hard to believe they’d have the bandwidth to make that happen.”
The lawsuit
Court records filed Tuesday and reported by the media Wednesday say De Laura and Latu reached a settlement with a woman who told police in December 2018 that the two raped her after a high school football game in Honolulu on Oct. 27, 2018, when she was about 17 years old. She was named in the court documents. However, the Arizona Daily Star does not generally name alleged victims of sexual assault.
According to court documents obtained this week by the Star, the then-teenaged girl, her mother and a friend flew from Molokai to Oahu to attend the matchup between St. Louis School, featuring de Laura and Latu, and Punahou at Aloha Stadium.
The girl “was an acquaintance of (de Laura) and other members of the (St. Louis) team,” the court documents say. As part of Hawaiian tradition, the girl brought leis to give to players on the team but was instructed to drive to the St. Louis campus after the players were directed to the team bus shortly after the game ended.
Court documents state the plaintiff drove to the school and delivered the leis to members of the St. Louis football team. Once she returned to the car, she received a text message from de Laura inquiring about her location, the records say.
According to the lawsuit, de Laura summoned her to the stairwell on the second floor of a parking structure connected to St. Louis School “because he needed to ‘talk’ to her.” The girl’s friend and mother remained in the car while she met with de Laura.
The claim says the girl encountered de Laura and Latu in the stairwell where they demanded she “engage in sex with the two of them simultaneously, immediately.”
When she refused, de Laura and Latu “physically overpowered” her and forced sex acts on her, the lawsuit states.
De Laura allegedly choked the plaintiff, who “was sobbing uncontrollably in fear and anger,” to get her to cooperate, the court documents say. When she refused, de Laura let her go, she went back to the car and her mother drove her away, the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, de Laura and Latu were charged with second-degree sexual assault and later pleaded guilty. Documentation of those charges is unavailable because all parties were minors and the case ran through juvenile court, where the records are closed to the public.
Neither de Laura nor Latu received jail time, the lawsuit says, adding that they were ordered to write apology letters to the plaintiff. Although the criminal case was handled through the juvenile court system, the civil lawsuit was filed against the families of de Laura and Latu, along with St. Louis School, for “assault, false imprisonment and negligence.”
Mediated settlement
De Laura’s attorney did not return messages seeking comment from the Star. Latu’s attorney, Michael Green, told The Athletic that the settlement in the civil lawsuit was not an admission of guilt by his client.
“I cannot in good conscience as a lawyer represent someone charged of a serious crime, at least accused, and let him go past their 18th birthday, go into big-boy court and take three years to finish the case and their college career is over,” Green told The Athletic. “I can’t do that. it’s just insane. Imagine getting a not guilty. Now he’s 24 years old. So we had the opportunity to end it immediately, and that’s what we did."
Green also told Hawaii News Now that “this case was better not to be tried.”
“For closure for him, certainly closure for this young woman ... we just wanted my client to go on with his life, let her go on with her life,” he said.
All parties involved “engaged in a mediations process” in December 2022, and settlements by de Laura and Latu’s families were reached for undisclosed amounts, according to the most recent court documents filed Tuesday. The case was filed in Hawaii Circuit Court, which handles civil cases seeking more than $40,000.
After his first season in Pullman, de Laura was arrested on suspicion of DUI in February 2021. WSU suspended him. He was found not guilty the following summer.
De Laura was named Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year following the 2021 season. He passed for 3,685 yards, third most in UA history, and 25 touchdowns in his first season at Arizona, leading the Wildcats to a 5-7 record, a four-win improvement over the previous season.
The Star’s Michael Lev contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: UA says it knew of de Laura's sex-assault case; QB's status 'unchanged'
