Report: Jameis Winston's lawyer says alleged rape victim wanted $7 million
The lawyer for Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston said that the woman who accused him of sexual assault asked for $7 million to settle her lawsuit against him, according to a letter obtained by TMZ and Pro Football Talk.
TMZ Sports first reported on the letter that Winston's lawyer David Cornwall sent to Florida State. In the letter, Cornwall says that Winston will cooperate with the school’s Title IX investigation into how it handled the rape allegations against his client.
Winston, the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner, was accused of sexually assaulting a fellow Florida State student in December 2012. The accuser met with police immediately after the incident on Dec. 7, 2012, but the case stalled from February until a Tampa Bay Times reporter looked into it last November. Tallahassee, Fla., police and the state attorney's office reopened their investigation of Winston, but prosecutors decided last December not to charge Winston, citing a lack of evidence.
According to the report, Cornwall rejected the $7 million demand from the alleged victim's lawyer, Patricia Carroll.
John Clune and Baine Kerr, the lawyers representing Winston's accuser, disputed Cornwell's account in a statement Wednesday:
"The facts that Mr. Cornwell chose not to disclose are that it was he himself who reached out to our client's former counsel Patricia Carroll to discuss paying off our client. Patricia Carroll didn't even know who David Cornwell was until he called. Mr. Cornwell then himself flew down from Atlanta to negotiate with Ms. Carroll."
"Settlement discussions were immediately unproductive as Cornwell was crude and insulting going so far as to say 'your client likes to (expletive) football players,'" they added. "When told that the client's main concern was not money but that Winston be held accountable for his actions, Cornwell threatened to sue our client and her parents for civil racketeering in an effort to intimidate them into staying quiet."
Last January, Carroll said her client planned to file a civil lawsuit against Winston, the Tallahassee Police Department and possibly Florida State University.
- Scooby Axson
