Top NFL draft pick Jameis Winston launched a fierce counterattack Friday against the woman accusing him of rape by filing a lawsuit accusing her of defamation.
Three weeks ago, former Florida State University (FSU) student Erica Kinsman filed a lawsuit against Winston, who was chosen at #1 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in last week’s NFL draft, claiming that he abducted and sexually assaulted her in December 2012 when both were students at FSU.
Kinsman had initially remained anonymous and pursued criminal charges against Winston, but three separate investigations by local and state law enforcement found insufficient evidence for an indictment and the case was dropped. Last January, she publicly revealed her identity and made an appearance in the documentary film “The Hunting Ground,” where she repeated her rape allegation against Winston.
Now, in the newly-filed suit, Winston accuses Kinsman of pursuing an “extortion enterprise,” knowingly slandering him in the media and hurting his future earnings potential in an effort to extract a $7,000,000 settlement from the newly-minted millionaire. Kinsman can’t claim she wasn’t warned, as Winston’s representatives stated last year that he planned to countersue if she pursued a civil case against him. The suit seeks compensatory damages in excess of $75,000, as well as punitive damages of an amount to be determined.
In “The Hunting Ground” and elsewhere, Kinsman has claimed she was given a spiked drink, transported back to Winston’s apartment, and then violently assaulted by Winston, leaving bruises and other injuries across her body.
However, Winston is claiming that incontrovertible evidence directly disproves these claims, and instead shows that Kinsman lied and subsequently altered her story.
For example, the suit accuses Kinsman of claiming to have a foggy memory from being struck on the head, only to instead say she had been drugged after medical examiners found no evidence of head trauma. Then, when two drugs tests found no evidence that Kinsman had consumed any drugs other than alcohol, she claimed that her memory was foggy due to general psychological trauma instead. Similarly, Kinsman’s claims of a violent sexual assault are said to be undermined by a medical examination that found no bruises or other trauma in line with the violence Kinsman claims to have suffered.
“Kinsman has taken her story out on six (6) test drives, adjusting it each time a lie is exposed and debunked. This case is her seventh excursion,” the lawsuit says.
Winston’s suit is the second case in less than a month of the accused party in a high-profile rape allegation fighting back with a lawsuit. In April, Columbia University student Paul Nungesser sued the college, claiming it failed to protect him from defamation at the hands of fellow student Emma Sulkowicz, the famed “Mattress Girl” who has been hauling a mattress around campus all year to demand Nungesser be expelled.
The full text of Winston’s court filing can be read here.
This report, by Blake Neff, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
