and Saranac Hale Spencer

GUILDERLAND – Three University at Albany football players are suspended from school and the team after being arrested on felony charges of first-degree rape.

The three 18-year-old freshmen – Lorenzo Ashbourne, Julius Harris, and Charles Guadagno – are being held in Albany County’s jail, each on $50,000 bail. Five thousand dollars are needed to get each suspect out of jail, but none of them had posted bail, Rachel McEneny, spokesperson for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office said yesterday.

Ashbourne and Harris, who were arraigned by Judge John Bailey in Guilderland Town Court on Monday, were scheduled to appear again on Wednesday, but waived their right to a pre-trial hearing.

The young woman who reported the assault, also a freshman, said in a statement to University police that she was raped repeatedly in the early hours of Sunday morning at 103 Onondaga Hall, the room that Ashbourne and Harris share.

Harris and Ashbourne were arrested by University Police on Monday. Guadagno was arrested early Wednesday morning.

All three men have been charged with first-degree non-forcible rape.

The men have all been suspended both from school and the football team, Michael Parker, assistant director of media relations for the University told The Enterprise. "They are no longer part of the University at Albany student body," he said yesterday.
Parker said students sign a code of conduct and, when that is violated, a judicial process within the university determines the outcome. "It’s a case-by-case basis," he said.

Media attention in this case has been widespread; McEneny said that she had received 45 calls per hour on Tuesday morning from news outlets across the country.

On campus, some students have expressed fear while others say they feel safe. Those from the southern hometowns of the accused men who talked to The Enterprise have expressed disbelief at the charges, and cited their sterling qualities.

According to the woman’s statement, she met Ashbourne at freshman orientation, and also had a math class with him. She met Harris through Ashbourne. She did not know Guadagno.

The statement, recounted in the accompanying story, graphically describes a series of rapes as the woman went in and out of consciousness early Sunday morning.
The accuser describes the drinks she had that night – shots of vodka and beer. The arrest report for Harris and Ashbourne, filled out by University Police, states under a box on "condition of defendant" that they appeared normal. That category is checked rather than "impaired drugs," "impaired alcohol," "mentally disturbed," or "injury/ill."

After the girl returned to her own dormitory room, in the Indian Quad, her suite-mates called a cab and took her to St. Peter’s Hospital, the statement says.

At St. Peter’s Hospital, a rape kit was administered, said McEneny. It takes two to three weeks for the results to come back, she said.

The accused men have denied all requests for interviews, and their lawyers could not be reached for comment.

Two of the defendants have hired lawyers privately – Hank Bauer is representing Guadagno, John Casey is representing Ashbourne. Harris is being represented by a public defender, James Milstein.

Rebecca Bausher, with the special victims unit, is handling the case for the district attorney’s office.

The accused

The three football players were all attending the University on partial scholarships.

Ashbourne is a 5 foot, 9 inch, 165-pound cornerback who graduated from Coral Springs High School in Coral Springs, Fla.
Harris is a 5 foot, 8 inch, 165-pound flanker who graduated from Palm Beach Gardens High School in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Guadagno is a 6 foot, 2 inch, 210-pound tailback who graduated from Gregory-Portland High School in Portland, Texas.

Guadagno’s high school coach, George Harris, was stunned when The Enterprise informed him yesterday of the rape charge. He has been coaching for 47 years, and is the head football coach at Gregory-Portland High School.
"Charles was a wonderful kid here," Coach Harris told The Enterprise, "one of the most dedicated kids I’ve ever coached in my life."
Coach Harris said that Guadagno dated a young woman who now helps with the football team. The two dated all through last year up until she broke it off about three weeks ago, he said. "Charles would call her every night," he said.

Coach Harris said that he spoke just last week to both Guadagno and his parents in separate conversations. Guadagno told him that he loves school in Albany, he said.
In response to Guadagno’s arrest, Coach Harris said, "I care about my athletes; this is very disturbing to me."

Guadagno was active in football, track, and power-lifting, and excelled in all three, his coach said.
"I could say nothing but good things about Charles and his family," Coach Harris said. "That just doesn’t sound like him."
Torin McCullough and Denishia Echols have known Ashbourne since elementary school. Echols said that Ashbourne "is definitely one of the nicest guys you could ever meet."

McCullough said that the two have worked together, played football together, ran track together, and often slept at each other’s houses. He has known him since the third grade.
"He has always treated women with respect as long as I’ve known him," McCullough said about Ashbourne.
"He’s so respectable and smart, which is why I know he wouldn’t do something dumb and mess up his life," Echols told The Enterprise.

He took honors and Advanced Placement courses in high school, McCullough said. Ashbourne’s father was strict with him, and made sure that he always did the right thing, he said.
"You could say he’s a model citizen," McCullough said of his long-time friend, adding he is just in shock about the charges.

Student reaction

About 200 students and staff gathered yesterday afternoon at the University at Albany’s campus center to ask questions of school administrators in the wake of last weekend’s reported rape.

Most of the women who addressed the panel – which included Provost Susan Herbst, Vice President for Athletic administration Lee McElroy, University Police Captain Aran Mull, and the president of the student union – said that they were offended by the e-mail that the university had sent to students following the reported rape.

In addition to alerting students to the incident, the e-mail included tips that students might follow to avoid unsafe situations. Many of the women felt that it implied women are responsible for avoiding unsafe situations, and those implications could re-victimize women who have been raped.

Among the tips included in the e-mail were not walking alone through the campus and leaving bars only with friends that you trust, one woman recalled. The problem with this advice is that it plays to the misunderstanding that most rapes are imposed by strangers when, in fact, the large majority are perpetrated by acquaintances, said one woman.
"What happens when it’s their friends who are raping them"" the girl asked when the panel stressed the importance of staying with friends.

Lorenzo Ashbourne was a friend and classmate of his accuser.

As freshmen, it’s difficult to know who your friends are and who you can trust, Herbst said. She suggested that incoming students should get to know each other in settings that don’t include drugs or alcohol – in study groups or during late-night political discussions.

Herbst has been leading the university since the death of President Kermit Hall.

Part of the freshmen orientation includes mandatory sessions on avoiding and reporting sexual assault, the coordinator of the program said. Nationwide, only 5 to 15 percent of rapes are reported to police, one woman said.
McElroy reported that members of the football team receive an even more intensive course on avoiding sexual assault. He added, after one woman asked how the university will try to fight misogyny, "We’ve got to work together to combat it." None of the students asked about Ashbourne’s, Harris’s, or Guadagno’s standing on the football team or what the reaction of the coach or teammates were.
A random sampling of students on Tuesday afternoon gave a different impression of the campus. Erin Mannion, a freshman who lives on the Indian Quad, said that she was surprised by the news but thinks that the campus is generally a safe place. "They take every precaution," she said of the university administration.

Stephanie Labarbera, a 21-year-old senior at the school, said that it’s sad when things like rape happen, but she doesn’t fault the university for incidents like this.
"Obviously it’s bad," she said. "But how much more enforcement can there be""

A number of the women who voiced their concerns to the panel yesterday, though, said that they felt unsafe on the campus. The biggest concern that they cited was a lack of lighting.
"As a woman, I don’t feel safe anywhere," Herbst said, agreeing with the women that the university should do everything that it can to be safe.
Some of the women who spoke asked for a stronger police presence on campus and in the dorms. Police Captain Mull said that he’d be happy to increase patrols in the residence halls, but, in the past, he said, "a lot of doors have shut as I walk down the hall."

What it means

Attorney Paul DerOhannesian, author of Sexual Assault Trials worked for 21 years as the chief of the sex crimes unit for the Albany County District Attorney. He has been working in private practice for nearly six years now.

In 1990, DerOhannesian prosecuted a first-degree non-forcible rape that occurred in a dormitory on the University at Albany campus. The rapist was convicted, he said.

All cases of first-degree rape, regardless of whether they are forcible, non-forcible, or statutory carry the same punishment – up to 25 years, he said.

Non-forcible rape, which is what the three university students are charged with, is classified as physical helplessness of the victim, he said. This can be a result of sleep, intoxication, or the influence of drugs, DerOhannesian said. He said that often times, physical helplessness involves alcohol.
"Physical helpless rape is as serious as a forcible rape," he told The Enterprise.

He explained that non-forcible rape does not mean non-consensual. If a nine-year-old child, for example, were raped, it would not matter whether the child gave consent or not, because legally a child that young cannot consent to sex, he said.
DerOhannesian said that rapes, such as the rapes alleged in this case, where friends are said to have taken turns with the same woman, are "not typical, but it does occur." Those types of rape, he said, are more likely to happen when the victim is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Initially, the police make the decision of what the charges will be. In this case, the University Police brought the charges of first-degree non-forcible rape against the accused men. Once the case leaves local court, the district attorney decides on the charges. They will then determine whether or not to proceed as a felony, and what the charges will be, DerOhannesian said.

McEneny agreed that there is a possibility that the charges could change when the case goes before a grand jury. She also said the district attorney’s office won’t know if the three accused rapists will be charged as a group until after the indictment.