The College Fix

‘Banned from campus, removed from the soccer team and suspended’

Colleges may want to rethink their immediate judgment of students who have been accused of sex crimes.

Just a day after the family of Cesar Antonio Lopez hired an attorney to represent him against rape charges, Lopez’s accuser was behind bars and charged with filing a false police report, Lopez attorney Paul Cannarella wrote in a press release Friday.

Lauren Emily Pearson accused her fellow Coker College classmate of sexually assaulting her during a party in the early morning of April 29, according to The State. Lopez was attending the college on an academic scholarship and playing on the soccer team.

Lopez’s lawyer said Pearson (below) claimed that his client “kidnapped her against her will, covered her mouth to prevent her screams, pinned her down, forcibly raping her in a dorm bathroom, later dismissing her saying ‘you can go now.'” His client told police they had consensual sex.

According to Cannarella, some witnesses said Lopez and Pearson “had been ‘making out’ prior to leaving the dorm room,” and the police statements by Pearson and her friends “simply weren’t adding up” shortly before she was arrested and booked.

While Pearson underwent a sexual-assault exam at a hospital after reporting the incident to police, those results haven’t been made public, according to The State.

Asked by WBTW whether the charge against Pearson was inventing the rape, Hartsville Police Lt. Mark Blair said “essentially that’s it.”

By late Friday police were in the process of dropping criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping charges against Lopez, according to the Hartsville Messenger.

Coker College has yet to acknowledge on its news page or social media that it jumped the gun in response to Pearson’s allegations. Lopez lawyer Cannarella wrote:

His family was forced to travel here from out of state, incur expenses for bail bonds and legal representation. … Regrettably, this same family was forced to clean out his dorm room after he was banned from campus, removed from the soccer team and suspended from school after his release from jail.

These false allegations should cause society to pause when they hear on the news or read on the internet that a person has been charged with a crime. Folks are quick to convict based simply on allegations, which oftentimes, just as here, are later proven to be false. In this case, our swift actions allowed that to happen rather quickly.

Sadly, its hard to un-ring the “charged with rape and kidnapping” bell. Mr. Lopez’s life has been changed forever, all because of a made-up story. His picture and the allegations are all over the internet. He was forced to leave the college he held near and dear.

Read The State (which aggregates other coverage) and Cannarella’s statement.

MORE: Former student faces 6 years in prison for false rape report, tampering

IMAGES: W. Glen Campbell Detention Center, Everipedia

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