Back in April, a lawyer for the alleged victim of an alleged 2012 sexual assault claimed that, because Jameis Winston had refused to cooperate, Florida State shuttered a federally-mandated Title IX investigation into the allegations.
It was reported five months later that FSU officials had spoken to the alleged victim for the first time a month before, even as the quarterback’s advisor, David Cornwell, released a scathing statement blaming the alleged victim for the delay in the probe. While Winston had still not spoken to investigators looking into the allegations, that appears ready to change.
In a tweet posted to his Twitter account Tuesday morning, Cornwell wrote that Winston will cooperate with the Title IX investigation. Cornwell was said to be informing FSU officials of his client’s intent today.
What level of cooperation to which Cornwell is alluding is unclear.
In early December of last year, following a three-week investigation, the Florida State’s Attorney office announced that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that the sexual encounter between Winston and the alleged victim was not consensual, and that no charges would be filed against the player. The state’s attorney in charge of that investigation, William Meggs, was highly critical of the Tallahassee Police Department’s investigation into the alleged rape in a New York Times report earlier this week, a report in which the university subsequently expressed its disappointment. The Tallahassee PD subsequently revised its policies when it came to handling sexual assault complaints in the wake of intense criticism it received.
In April it was reported that the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has launched its own investigation into FSU’s handling of the case.
Cornwell’s declaration comes one day after Winston was reinstated from his one-game suspension. The reigning Heisman winner missed the narrow escape over Clemson because of a vulgar and obscene incident earlier in the week.