Brandon Banks, a Vanderbilt University football player charged with raping an unconscious female student, says he was bullied into the sexual assault by his teammate.
Katie Hagan, Brandon Banks’ defense attorney, says her client was acting under duress during the 2013 rape, which happened in a Vanderbilt campus dorm room and was partially recorded on Banks’ cell phone.
Hagan also alleged that Banks’ teammate Brandon Vandenburg, 23, ‘was pressuring and goading’ Banks. Vandenburg was already sentenced to 17 years in prison back in June 2016 for his role in the rape. Similarly, Cory Batey, 23, another Vanderbilt University player involved in the incident, received a 15-year sentence in April 2016.
Banks has pleaded not guilty.
via The Tennessean:
Banks, now 23, has largely been out of the public eye as two of his former football teammates went to trial — and were convicted — in the June 2013 gang rape of an unconscious female student. Instead, while his own charges in the case were pending, the Maryland native moved to Jackson, Tenn., where he played two seasons as a defensive back for the Lane College Dragons.
Banks’ trial on aggravated rape and other charges begins Monday, nearly four years to the day after the rape that rocked Vanderbilt University. Had it not been for Vanderbilt University police investigating vandalism in a dorm in June 2013, the rape may never have been discovered.
Campus police saw four men carrying an unconscious woman into a room at Vanderbilt’s Gillette Hall in the early morning hours of June 23. Metro Nashville police began an investigation, and soon four players were off the football team and under indictment, each facing five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.
The victim, who has not been identified, testified that she does not remember what happened and that her last memory is of Brandon Vandenburg handing her a ‘blue-colored’ drink.
