Former IU football player Morgan Ellison released a statement from his Twitter account Saturday night claiming he is innocent of sexual assault.
The written statement was his first public comment since an IU sexual misconduct hearing panel found Oct. 3 that he had committed sexual assault against another student and suspended him for two and a half years. He is permanently ineligible to play football.
Ellison wrote in the statement that the accusations made against him were false and that IU did not handle the case properly.
One of Ellison's chief issues, according to the statement, was IU's panel ignoring pivotal text messages he claims prove interactions with his accuser were consensual.
“Additionally, The Panel made fundamental errors in its finding, including incorrectly identifying the timing of the Complainant’s texts — one of which, according to the IU Hearing Panel itself, exonerated me of these false charges,” Ellison said in the statement. “This indicates a lack of appropriate diligence, and a process at IU that was unable to conduct such a proceeding properly."
He also stated the hearing process took only a “fraction” of time usually needed for such cases.
Katharine Liell, an attorney in Bloomington who has worked on University sexual assault cases, said the process usually takes several months. It is unknown at this time how long this case was investigated.
“For the University’s sake, I don’t know how you could have came to a conclusion in such a short period of time,” Ellison’s sister, Tenesha Session, said in an interview with the Indiana Daily Student on Oct. 11. “Unfortunately, it looks like they just went off a ‘he say, she say’ and not actual facts.”
Ellison appealed the panel's findings, but the panel's recommendation was upheld.
An IU Athletics spokesperson could not be reached for comment. IU spokesman Chuck Carney declined to comment.
This story may be updated.
