Conviction Dismissed Against Former High School Football Player

05.25.12

Kidnapping and rape charges against a former Southern California high school player were dismissed Thursday in a Los Angeles County Superior Court. In 2002, Brian Banks was accused by a classmate of the crimes and took a plea to avoid trial and the risk of a 41-year prison sentence.

 

The alleged victim claimed that she had been forced to the school’s basement and raped without a condom, but DNA testing did not find sperm on her underwear. Banks pleaded to one count of forcible rape and spent five years in prison. Upon his release, he was forced to register as a sex offender and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

 

After Banks was released, the alleged victim contacted him on Facebook. She eventually admitted to him what he already knew—that there had been no kidnap and no rape. She offered to help him clear his record if it didn’t affect the $1.5 million settlement she received from the school district after her family filed a lawsuit about the incident.

 

Banks recorded their conversations and took the evidence to the California Innocence Project. Director Justin Brooks presented prosecutors with the project’s findings, and they agreed the case should be dismissed.

 

Read more about the case in the


Los Angeles Times


.

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