Former U. of Minnesota Players to Stand Trial on Rape Charges

The sexual assault trial of three former University of Minnesota basketball players will begin Monday, six months after they were accused of repeatedly raping a woman for several hours.

Mitchell Lee, 21, Kevin Smith, 21, and George Williams Jr., 20, have been charged with a total of 12 first-degree sexual assault charges.

The pre-trial proceedings were long, grueling exercises, involving a number of motions that, for the most part, were denied by Dane County Circuit Judge George Northrup.

Some of the rejected motions were requests for a change of venue because of pre-trial publicity, a separate trial for Williams, suppression of the woman’s identification of Williams and dismissal of the charges.

The 19-year-old woman bringing the charges claimed she was raped for several hours by the men at the Concourse Hotel in Madison Jan. 24, after a Wisconsin-Minnesota basketball game.

Testimony in preliminary hearings revealed she had been at a party earlier in the evening with Lee and Smith, and agreed to go to their hotel. She testified she was told there would be a party there with many people.