Hazing scandal at Carlton has serious new allegations

Here is the link and an excerpt below

Taariq Muhammad Vanegas, 19-year-old Carleton football player and rec league lacrosse coach from Seattle, Washington, faces felony third-degree sexual assault charges after reportedly having sex with a female student whose blood alcohol content was at least three times the legal limit. The student, who’s not named, says she remembers little of the encounter, which began with a cryptic email and ended with her wandering half clothed through a college dorm, according to a criminal complaint filed in Rice County Court.

Vanegas, a defensive lineman for the Knights football team, also played for the college’s lacrosse team. Lacrosse is a club sport at Carleton. While his name remains on the Knights lacrosse roster, he’s been scrubbed from the football roster. He’s listed on the Northfield Lacrosse Association website as a coach for the Boys 8 and under team.

His first appearance in court is set for Aug. 17.

According to the complaint, events transpired as follows:

…

Over the next few hours, the [initiated] students drank a variety of alcohol — from Jell-O shots to bag wine to beer — were taken to various locations and told to perform different tasks before being initiated into a group called DTX. Following a final bonfire, the victim fell and was helped up by Vanegas, who told her to walk straight. Her next memory is being in bed with him naked and on top of her.

The victim remembers little of the rest of the evening, at one point imagining that she had been taken to the hospital, but recalled being in a room with two students.

Two male students reported to Carleton Security that at about 5 a.m. a female student wearing only a T-shirt, identified later on security footage as the victim, wandered into their room, laid down on one of the beds and fell asleep. They described her as disoriented, wobbly and smelling of alcohol.

By Hank Nuwer

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