Vito Tisdale was all smiles at Media Day. Now he's got reason to smile again as he has been reinstated at Kentucky. (Jeff Houchin Photo)
Mark Stoops never wavered in his belief that six University of Kentucky football players that faced burglary charges over an incident at a UK fraternity house in March were not guilty. A Fayette County grand jury agreed and declined to indict any of the players.
Stoops revealed that the six — Andru Phillips, RJ Adams, Vito Tisdale, Joel Williams, Earnest Sanders, and JuTahn McClain — had been practicing in a limited capacity with the team about a week because he felt they were going to be cleared. Stoops would not speculate after practice Tuesday on whether any of the six would play Saturday night against Florida even though Tisdale and Phillips certainly would provide welcome depth to the UK secondary.
Stoops watched the six practice Tuesday and said they all “definitely need a lot of reps” after being out and he doesn’t know “how fast that’ll come” for individual players.
“We believed that at the end of this process they would be exonerated, and they were,” Stoops said about the charges that were filed Aug. 19 about five months after the incident after an internal UK investigation had cleared the players.
“There’s a lot to learn. I think we all can understand the basics of that and where they need to be, and what they need to be focused on. They are college students and in the springtime, and things happen. But, again, I appreciate the process playing out,” Stoops said.
He also had a warning.
“I feel bad for people that don’t have representation. I can tell you that,” the UK coach said. “The wrongly accused, it’s a scary world out there for them.”
The players were suspended for about 13 weeks after the incident and missed spring practice. They were suspended again when the charges were filed in August and now have missed four games and another four weeks of practice.
“I believe that nobody believed it would go this far,” Stoops said. “Maybe one person.”
The players were obviously relieved to be cleared.
“I just want to get on here and thank the Lord, my family/friends, and anyone else who has been there with me through this whole situation. Today my fabricated charges were finally dropped, and I can do nothing but thank the lord. Time to get back to work!!” Phillips posted on Twitter.
McClain posted this on Twitter: “Thank yal for all yal support through this challenging time. It’s been a long and tough process but I kept faith in God through it all! Now let’s ball! #LLA #IMBACK”
Here is what McClain’s mother also posted: “This is how you feel when you are finally able to tell your side and everything is dismissed. He can and will speak on it now but first Thank you God!”
The players have been able to say nothing during the process and likely will not be saying a lot going forward. However, I did look back to see what Phillips posted on Twitter about four weeks ago: “You never realize how much you truly love something until it gets taken from you.”
Now the players have it back.
4 Responses
For one, I am glad that this chapter can be closed. I feel bad for the players who found themselves caught up in this legal system, had their names and reputations demeaned in public, and had to incur the direct and hidden cost of criminal accusations and defense.
I wonder what was really driving this!
A prosecuting attorney can usually get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if that prosecutor is committed to a case. The failure of this grand jury to return indictments should tell us some things about the case. Either there was not enough evidence of a crime, or that these accused had committed the crime, if a crime had occurred. Alternatively, it suggests that this prosecutor was not "all in" on the charges he took to the grand jury, or was driven by some sort of hidden agenda and failed on the mission to indict. Either way, it is not a good look for the government.
If the prosecutor was not "all in" on this case, then why would the prosecutor pursue charges even if the police made arrests? Prosecutors should be able to exercise discretionary judgment on such matters. If the prosecutor (or others) were driven by a hidden agenda, then those people need to be removed from positions of such power.
This has been and is disgraceful.
Very good analysis as always Professor
I said earlier in an article here on Vaughtsviews that nothing good could come from this process and nothing has. The coaches and players are frustrated by the lengthy waste-of-time court process, taxpayers paid for prosecution that led nowhere, jurors wasted their time listening to no evidence from a non-existent crime that UK had already investigated and said that not enough evidence existed to convict anybody of anything. What we don’t know is was political pressure brought to bear by exuberant parents of the fraternity members or did some Fayette Co detective want to build a name for himself by prosecuting well-known athletes or did someone in the “system” have an axe to grind with UK or UK Athletics. What we do know is that 6 UK athletes missed a quarter of their season, evidently some fraternity members suffered some type of physical beating and university probation for their fraternity, Kentucky Football received a national black eye as well and at the end of the day a lot of time and money was wasted by a bureaucratic judicial machine that did not know when to stop. Hopefully everyone will learn something from this fiasco but I doubt it.
Indeed you did Keith