2 Marymount Basketball Players Convicted of Rape

Two members of last year’s Marymount College basketball team have each been convicted on four counts of raping a woman who also was a student at the small Rancho Palos Verdes campus.

Bryon Flournoy, a sophomore guard on last year’s team, and Warren Cox, a freshman center, were convicted earlier this month in Long Beach Superior Court and are free on $50,000 bail pending sentencing Oct. 4.

The two men were convicted by a jury of repeatedly raping the 23-year-old woman while she was visiting their San Pedro apartment in February.

Cox, a 20-year-old plumber from the Bahamas, was Marymount’s star player last season when he led the team with 19.4 points a game and 10.7 rebounds. Flournoy, 23, is a Gardena High School graduate who started at point guard last year and averaged 7.1 assists a game.

Marymount basketball Coach Jim Masterson, who is also the school’s athletic director, refused to comment on the trial, which ended Sept. 13. Other college officials did not return calls seeking comment, and the registrar’s office declined to say whether either man is registered at the school this fall.

Neither Cox nor the attorney who represented the two men could be reached for comment. Flournoy, who was reached at his parents’ home, denied knowing anything about the case.

Detective Julie Nelson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division said the victim reported the incident on Feb. 23, shortly after it occurred. Nelson said the woman told police that she had been repeatedly raped at the apartment Cox and Flournoy shared with two other Marymount basketball players during the school year. In her testimony, court records show, the victim said she went to the athletes’ apartment at about 3 p.m. to meet Flournoy, with whom she had plans for the afternoon. Instead she stayed at the apartment and had a few beers with Cox, Flournoy and three other basketball players.

At about 6:15 p.m., the woman testified, she was in the bedroom wrestling with Flournoy, who is 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, and Cox, who is 6-foot-6 and 205 pounds. Shortly after that, she said, the two men pinned her to the floor against her will and took turns raping her.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Lamb said both men initially denied having intercourse with the victim. At the trial they contended that the woman had consented to have sex with them, Lamb said.

Lamb said it can sometimes be difficult to obtain a rape conviction against athletes because of the popular conception that they “can get any girl they want, so why would they rape somebody?” He also said juries sometimes reason that a woman “drinking with a bunch of guys can’t be raped.”

Referring to this case, Lamb said: “It’s good that you can have all those biases and yet a jury can see through them.”

Nelson said evidence used by the prosecution included a semen sample taken from the victim that tests linked to Flournoy’s blood type.

Also presented as evidence were taped phone messages to the victim from Flournoy in which he apologized to her for the incident, Nelson said. After hearing the message, Nelson said, she had the victim call Cox. In that conversation, which police taped, Cox asked to be forgiven, saying he and Flournoy had been drunk, Nelson said.

Basketball coaches in the area said they were shocked by news of the convictions.

“I’m really surprised. I’m stunned,” said Harbor College basketball Coach Ken Curry, whose team competes in the same conference with Marymount. “I thought it was pretty strange in the spring when Warren (Cox) didn’t play. (The coach and players) just said it was because he had to work. I’m having a real hard time believing that happened.”

Lamb said that because it was their first offense and because the case did not involve aggravated rape, Flournoy and Cox are likely to be sentenced to a minimum of five to six years in prison.