The team announced the move Saturday, two days after Araiza was accused in a civil lawsuit of participating in a gang rape of a minor last year.
Araiza was not available to comment. He said in a statement Friday night released through his agent: “The facts of the incident are not what they are portrayed in the lawsuit or in the press. I look forward to quickly setting the record straight.”The lawsuit, dated Thursday, was filed in California Superior Court in San Diego County. It identifies the plaintiff as Jane Doe and says she was 17 years old at the time of the alleged incident on Oct. 17.
Beane said the Bills would not have drafted Araiza if they’d known about the allegations at that point.“We did not know about this,” Beane said, “and the league did not know about this. … We’ve reached out to, I can tell you, double-digit teams at this point, and no one had anything on this. … You know how important the character and the culture is to Sean and me. And anything that would have been lingering, that would have been off our [draft] board.
Araiza traveled to Charlotte with the team but did not play in Friday’s game. McDermott said during his postgame news conference that he’d made the decision to withhold Araiza from the game, adding that the team had “work to do” in reevaluating Araiza’s status with the organization. The lawsuit alleges that Araiza “led Doe over to the side yard of the house where he told her to perform oral sex on him.” She complied, according to the lawsuit, which says that Araiza “pulled her up from the ground, turned her around facing away from the party, and used his penis to penetrate her vagina from behind.”
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