Trial to begin for former Ohio State football players accused of rape

Jordan Laird, The Columbus Dispatch
·2 min read
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Former Ohio State football player Jahsent Wint looks back to his attorney, Sam Shamansky, left, after his arraignment in February 2020 in Franklin County Municipal Court on charges alleging he and teammate Amir Riep raped a then-19-year-old woman on Feb. 4, 2020 in an apartment the two men shared.
Former Ohio State football player Jahsent Wint looks back to his attorney, Sam Shamansky, left, after his arraignment in February 2020 in Franklin County Municipal Court on charges alleging he and teammate Amir Riep raped a then-19-year-old woman on Feb. 4, 2020 in an apartment the two men shared.

Three years after a woman accused two then-Ohio State University football players of raping her, the men are set to go to trial this week.

Amir I. Riep and Jahsen L. Wint, both 24, were defensive players for the football team when Columbus police charged them with the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman on Feb. 4, 2020 at a Northwest Side apartment.

Riep and Wint are each charged with two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping, all first-degree felonies.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, where Riep and Wint will be tried at the same time.

An affidavit filed by Columbus police when the men were first charged alleges the female victim was hanging out with Riep in a Northwest Side apartment shared by the men. Riep and the woman began having consensual sex, but the woman moved away and said she did not want to continue, according to police.

Wint then entered the room and asked if he could join, according to police, before both men forcibly raped the woman.

After the incident, Riep had the woman say the sex was consensual on video, according to police.

"Riep then recorded (the victim) asking if he wanted her face since she was crying and he told her no, just say it was consensual while laughing at her," a police detective said in the affidavit.

After telling her that she needed to take a shower, police said, Riep then drove the woman home. The woman reported the incident to police less than three hours after it occurred, according to the police report.

Ohio State head football coach Ryan Day dismissed both players from the team on Feb. 12, 2020, saying they had failed to live up to the standards of Day and the program.

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jlaird@dispatch.com

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jury selection to begin in trial of former Ohio State football players