Accuser's friends reported Roethlisberger guards kept them away
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PDFMILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. -- Ben Roethlisberger's "bodyguards" were actively involved in putting the Steelers quarterback and his accuser together inside a Georgia nightclub and preventing the 20-year-old woman's friends from reaching her, according to their accounts to police contained in documents released today.
The woman who told police that Roethlisberger assaulted her gave two statements -- one shortly after the incident, a second several hours later.
"Ben asked us to go to his "vip" area (back of Capital). We all went with him," she wrote in the second statement. "He said there were shots for us, numerous shots were on the bar, and he told us to take them. His bodyguard came and took my arm and said come with me, he escorted me into a side door/hallway, and sat me on a stool. He left and Ben came back ... . I told him it wasn't ok, no, we don't need to do this and I proceeded to get up and try to leave. I went to the first door I saw, which happened to be a bathroom. He followed me into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. I still said no, this is not ok, and he then had sex with me. He said it was ok. Then he left without saying anything."
The Steelers quarterback, who was the focus of a monthlong investigation into sexual assault allegations by Georgia authorities that ended this week with no charges being filed, called his accuser a "tease" during a night of bar-hopping prior to the ill-fated encounter at the Capital City nightclub in Milledgeville, she said in a handwritten statement.
It was there that the woman alleged Mr. Roethlisberger raped her in a bathroom. Mr. Roethlisberger has denied the accusation through his lawyers.
The Post-Gazette does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.
One of the woman's friends, Nicole Biancofiore, said the woman "was dragged by a bodyguard to the back room in Capital. She was extremely intoxicated and not aware of what was happening."
Ms. Biancofiore said she saw another friend, Aliesha Scholten, try to open the locked bathroom door, but "she was taken away by a bodyguard of Ben's."
First Published April 15, 2010 1:57 pm
