Utah State Prioritized Serial Rapist Football Star Over His Six Victims’ Safety: Lawsuit

By the time ex-Utah State University football player and convicted serial rapist Torrey Green attacked Alison*, he had already assaulted five other women, three of whom reported the crimes to the college, according to a federal civil-rights lawsuit she filed last week.

Alison is the third victim to file suit against Utah State following Green’s January 2019 conviction. The 26-year-old, who had signed with the Atlanta Falcons and attended the team’s training camp after graduating with a clean record, is serving a 26-year prison sentence on five counts of rape and one count of sexual battery.

Aside from those convictions, Green faces another, separate rape allegation from his time at Utah State, which is set to go to trial in February.

Alison has said that she met Green on Tinder and that they went for ice cream on their first date. On their second date, on Aug. 1, 2015, she went to his apartment to watch a movie, where she says he raped and assaulted her. She testified during Green’s trial, and he was convicted for attacking her.

But, she claims, the rape would never have happened if Utah State had appropriately responded to the previous sexual-assault allegations against Green, which surfaced after an assault in October 2014. Alison’s lawsuit was first reported by The Deseret News.

Green was a football star on athletic scholarship at the university from approximately 2011 to 2016. One student who was allegedly raped by Green in October 2014 reported it to a professor and to the school’s Title IX Office, but the school “failed to investigate” the report, according to the federal lawsuit. In January 2015, another student who was sexually assaulted by Green reported it to local police and to her dorm supervisor, who notified the Utah State Title IX Office, the complaint claims. In June 2015, Green sexually assaulted another student, who reported it to two university agencies in October, including the Title IX Office, the lawsuit states. 

By the time that student met with Utah State representatives, she was allegedly told “that the university had already received multiple accusations of sexual assault perpetrated by Green.”

One month later, in November 2015, another female student and athlete was sexually assaulted by Green. She also reported it to the Title IX Office, according to the lawsuit. 

“At no point did Utah State actively investigate Green and the accusations made against him,” the lawsuit claims.

In January 2016, Matt Wells, the head coach of the football team, allegedly documented a meeting with Green to discuss the allegations. The meeting was also attended by Eric Olsen, the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs. Green was “permitted to remain a student at Utah State and to finish his football career” and graduated in May after signing an NFL contract. To be clear, Green played his last game during the 2015 football season. He was never disciplined, publicly booted from the team, or removed from campus, according to the lawsuit.

Wells is now the head football coach at Texas Tech University.

Alison’s complaint alleges that the school “actively facilitat[ed] a known sexual predator’s presence on the university campus” and that she suffered “severe physical, mental, and emotional trauma” from the rape and subsequent response by the university. Due to an alleged lack of meaningful support, she forfeited her full-tuition scholarship to transfer to another school. She has since incurred substantial student-loan debt, according to the lawsuit.

Another lawsuit, filed by two other survivors of Green’s violence in October, alleges that “a dangerous environment existed at Utah State University where sexual assaults were known about and tolerated by the university and the individual defendants.”

Utah State hired a law firm in 2016 to conduct an independent third-party investigation into how it handled reports of sexual violence, which revealed “egregious flaws” in the school’s handling of reports, the lawsuit contends. The university, the complaint claims, failed to adequately train its employees in handling sexual-assault reports.

The survivors held hands at Green's sentencing hearing in March, while each woman got up, one by one, to give a victim-impact statement, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. Meanwhile, Green maintained his innocence and reportedly broke down in tears, telling the judge he was not “the monster” that he was being made out to be in court.

Before sentencing Green to serve his next 26 years in prison, District Judge Brian Cannell looked at Alison and the other women and told them, “I believe you.”

Then he turned to Green and said, “What you did was horrendous. In the eyes of the law, you are a serial rapist. They didn’t want it. They didn’t like it.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Utah State said, “Torrey Green had many victims both at USU and in the community, and the university would like to assist USU students who were victims to reach closure.”

“USU has publicly acknowledged it fell short in several ways in addressing sexual assaults on campus in the Torrey Green case, and we are continuing to address those university-wide systemic problems,” the statement continued. “This lawsuit, however, as filed, relies on countless incorrect assumptions, misrepresents how universities are able to address sexual assaults, and contains a number of outright factual errors and multiple timeline errors.”

Alison is seeking unspecified damages. Her attorneys declined to comment for this story.

Alison* is a pseudonym provided by The Daily Beast, which does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Green played his last game for the Utah State University football team in the 2015 football season, and that the January 2016 meeting between Wells and Green was also attended by Eric Olsen, the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs.