WARNING: The article below contains content pertaining to, but not limited to civil lawsuits concerning accusations of the following offenses: sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, rape and sex trafficking. If you or some you know has been sexually assaulted, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
On Tuesday, November 21, former NFL defensive end Marcellus Wiley became the subject of a civil lawsuit filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act. The plaintiff accuses Wiley of “raping her multiple times in her dorm room” during his time as a student at Columbia University.
“[Wiley’s] actions were intentionally designed to cause plaintiff severe emotional distress or were taken with reckless disregard of the significant and/or substantial probability of causing plaintiff severe emotional distress,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit claims the plaintiff attempted to address the matter with university officials, but was told that “the event was a misunderstanding.” More specifically, the lawsuit claims former residential dean Kathleen McDermott told the plaintiff that Wiley did not rape her because she “was not from America and had therefore misinterpreted defendant’s conduct because ‘people from different cultures interpret things differently.’”
“[Columbia University was] callous, negligent, reckless and deceptive response to, and handling of, plaintiff’s and other students’ allegations was an unconscionable revictimization of the plaintiff, which caused psychological injuries, financial and academic damages,” the lawsuit states.
Representatives for Wiley nor representatives for Columbia University have issued a comment regarding the matter.
