Jim Brown Will Be Charged With Rape

Former professional football star Jim Brown will be charged with rape, sexual battery and assault in an alleged attack last month on a 33-year-old schoolteacher who was a guest at his Hollywood Hills home, the district attorney’s office announced Monday.

A female companion, Carol Moses, 22, who was arrested with Brown the morning after the Feb. 19 incident, will not be charged, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Sandra L. Buttitta, head of the office’s sexual crimes unit.

Brown, 49, is to be arraigned Thursday in Los Angeles Municipal Court. He is free on $17,500 bail.

“The charges against Mr. Brown are unfounded,” said Eddie J. Harris, an associate of Brown’s attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. “We think Mr. Brown has been treated unfairly,” Harris added. “Mr. Brown will be exonerated.”

The long-awaited decision by the district attorney’s office was delayed, Buttitta said, in part because investigators were waiting to interview two people who were identified by Cochran as witnesses to the incident. On Sunday, Buttitta said, Cochran told the district attorney’s office that he would not name the reputed witnesses or provide any other information about the case.

“It is not Mr. Brown’s duty to present all of his witnesses to the D.A.,” Harris said. “The D.A. brought the charges against Mr. Brown. Let them prove those charges.”

In the nearly four weeks since his arrest, Brown has twice publicly denied that he raped the woman and has said that the district attorney’s office has medical evidence that proves his innocence. Brown said he was breaking up a fight between Moses and the schoolteacher.

Buttitta, however, said Monday that the district attorney’s office has physical evidence that supports the account of the incident that the alleged victim gave to police. She declined to elaborate.

“I don’t want to say what our evidence is,” Buttitta said.

According to police reports filed in Municipal Court, the alleged victim called police about 1 a.m. on Feb. 20 and told them this story:

Brown telephoned her on the afternoon of Feb. 19 and invited her to his home on Sunset Plaza Drive, above the Sunset Strip. She arrived in the early evening. After eating dinner with Brown and Moses, Brown’s companion, Brown asked the alleged victim to lie next to him on his bed and began making sexual advances.

Started to Leave

After the woman told Brown to stop and started to leave, Brown spun her around and said, “You’re not going anywhere.” He then slapped her, hit her on the head and in the stomach, and choked her, growing more violent as she asked him to stop, the woman told police.

Brown carried her to the bedroom and removed part of her clothing, she said. The woman told police that Moses had sexual contact with her and that Brown then took off the rest of her clothes and raped her.

Brown was a record-setting fullback for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 until 1965, later taking up acting.