In December, prosecutors in San Diego announced that former Buffalo Bills punter Matt Araiza would not face criminal charges after being accused in a civil suit of participating in the gang rape of an intoxicated 17-year-old girl in October 2021. 

At that time, little was known about why prosecutors reached that decision. A report Monday night from Yahoo Sports shed some light on that, Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News reports.

The website obtained a 200-page transcript of a 100-minute meeting between Araiza's accuser and her attorneys and the deputy district attorney. According to the report, the DA's office said Araiza could not have led the girl into the reported gang rape because he had left the house party at about 12:30 a.m., an hour prior to when the attack was reported to have occurred.

"He wasn’t even at the party anymore,” deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained to the girl, according to the report from Yahoo's Dan Wetzel. Amador later said, “All I know is that at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.”

The report said prosecutors told the accuser that "video recordings of the incident in the bedroom made it impossible to determine, let alone prosecute anyone, on whether there was a gang rape at all that night, rather than consensual sex with the other men."

Araiza was selected in the sixth round by the Bills in 2022 and appeared to have won the punting job in training camp when the Bills released Matt Haack. He was released by the Bills two days after the civil suit was filed against him in what Bills general manager Brandon Beane said "was the best move for everyone to move on from Matt and let him take care of this situation.” Araiza has not had another opportunity in the NFL.

Araiza and two former San Diego State teammates are still facing a civil lawsuit. They have denied the gang rape allegations and said they did not know that the accuser was under 18 or whether she was intoxicated.  

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/theredzoneorg 
  
Like us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/Theredzone.org