Raiders’ Scott Davis Accused in Beating

A 23-year-old female medical student has filed a complaint in Cook County circuit court claiming that Raider defensive end Scott Davis beat her and dragged her by her hair during a quarrel last Saturday night.

It is the fourth time in three years that Davis, 24, a 1988 first-round draft choice from the University of Illinois, has been the target of a battery allegation in legal proceedings in Illinois. Three of the complaints were lodged by women.

In 1987, Davis pleaded guilty to a charge of misdemeanor battery and was fined $150 and placed on probation by the university.

The next year he was charged with battery in two separate incidents involving female students. One of the cases eventually was dismissed; in the other, he was found not guilty in a Champaign County circuit court.

The latest allegations involve Julie Rubin, a first-year medical student who said she has dated Davis for three years. Rubin filed papers Monday accusing Davis of battery and seeking an order to keep him away from her. A hearing was scheduled for April 5.

Rubin said that she was in the process of breaking up with Davis when he came to her apartment on Chicago’s West Side to reclaim some possessions. Shortly after arriving, she claimed, he became enraged, pulled on her hair, forced one arm behind her back and pinned her down on her bed with his knee in the small of her back.

“I started to scream and he let go of my hair and covered my mouth and nose with his hand,” she charged. She said she tried to dial 911. Davis allegedly slammed the phone down and hit her with the back of his fist below her left ear. Rubin said she curled up on the floor, and Davis allegedly grabbed her hair and dragged her around the carpet.

Eventually, Rubin said, she was able to get free and call a neighbor, and Davis left. Reached by telephone at his suburban Chicago home, a man who identified himself as Davis denied that he knew Rubin. “This probably isn’t a good time to comment because I don’t know anything about this,” he said. Asked about the previous incidents, Davis replied: “I’m not going to comment on this. You’re going to have to talk to me at a later time.”

Davis is 6-feet-7 and weighs 270 pounds.

Rubin, 5-4 and 105 pounds, said she was not seriously hurt and did not require hospitalization. But two neighbors who came to her assistance said they found her hysterical. The neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said Rubin complained of a sore jaw and ringing in the ears. One neighbor said Rubin had carpet burns on her back and had lost large tufts of hair.

Rubin said she had never before been physically harmed by Davis, though she was aware of allegations that he had struck other people. “I knew he had a tendency toward violence and a vicious temper, but he had a tender side, too, and I loved him,” she said. “It’s just like the old saying. I never thought it would happen to me. These other people were just strangers. I was kind of dumb.”

The night before he was picked by the Raiders in the 1988 draft, Davis was arrested outside a campus bar after he allegedly grabbed a 19-year-old female university student by the hair and shoved her to the ground twice. Davis was acquitted.

Earlier in 1988, he was charged with assaulting a woman at a fraternity party. That case was dismissed.

The 1987 case involved an attack on Eric Semelroth, an art student at the Urbana campus.

Davis pleaded guilty to the attack on Semelroth and was fined and put under court supervision, which allows first offenders to have criminal records erased if they keep out of trouble for a specified period of time. After the 1988 incidents, prosecutors petitioned a judge to revoke Davis’ court supervision status, but the request was not granted, so he technically has no criminal record.