On Thursday a civil lawsuit was filed that accused three people, including Buffalo Bills’ punter Matt Araiza, of gang-rape stemming from an incident at San Diego State University in October of last year, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.
According to the lawsuit, the incident occurred at an off-campus party and involved a 17-year-old girl, who at the time was a high school senior. Araiza is listed in the civil lawsuit along with two other San Diego State University football players, Zavier Leonard and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko.
The Buffalo Bills drafted Matt Araiza this past April in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft after he played four seasons at San Diego State University.
Buffalo Bills release statement shortly after the allegations were reported
Thursday evening after the report was released, the Bills released a statement according to this tweet from Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN and said they “conducted a thorough examination of this matter.” They went on to say that they will “have no other comment at this point.”
Getzenberg followed that tweet with a statement from the accuser’s lawyer saying that multiple organizations have acted as enablers and included the Buffalo Bills as one of those organizations.
Statement from Dan Gilleon, the lawyer who filed the civil suit, to ESPN: https://t.co/UFfDOfUA5v pic.twitter.com/DnLTC5bDJF
— Alaina Getzenberg (@agetzenberg) August 25, 2022
Matt Araiza recently won the starting punter job with the Buffalo Bills after the team released Matt Haack on Monday.