Video from the night when former NBA player Mateen Cleaves was accused of sexual assault shows his female accuser, half-naked in the street, and struggling to get away as Cleaves tries to pull her back to his motel room.
Cleaves was eventually acquitted of four sexual assault charges.
The video, first obtained by WXYZ-TV in Detroit, first shows a woman walking away with Cleaves pursuing her. The former player then appears to grab the woman by her wrists and drags her back out of camera shot. Then, 13 minutes later, the woman appears again, this time running away. Cleaves runs after her and grabs her again.
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“The struggle, prosecutors say, took place between 1:30AM and 2:00AM,” WXYZ-TV reported.
“She looked at me and she said: ‘Help me, help me, help me,’” said Colleen Dowdall, a witness to the altercation. “And I had the phone in my hand and I told her I’m on the phone right now calling the police,” she said. “I looked Mateen in the eyes, he didn’t say one word.”
Dowdall also told of how the woman described the sexual encounter with Cleaves.
“She said he got on top of her,” Dowdall testified, “she couldn’t fight him off and she just laid there.”
Cleaves’ attorney argued that the sex between their client and the accuser was consensual, and that his behavior in the video only showed him trying to protect her.
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