Football Quarterback Accused of Rape

A 31 year old Nevada woman has come forward and filed a lawsuit in which she states that football player Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her. She was an employee at Harrah's casino at the time. Nevada officials do not intend to open a criminal investigation into these allegations. Why aren't officials looking into this? Apparently only the victim can file a criminal complaint for there to be any kind of investigation. Ben Roethlisberger is the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. He participated in a celebrity golf outing in Nevada's Lake Tahoe last July and was a guest at the casino Harrah's. She is stating that not only was she assaulted by Roethlisberger, but that she reported it to officials at Harrah's and they attempted to cover up the incident because of a personal relationship they have with the football star. The woman feared for her job and did not report the incident to the police. Records show that she received treatments last year for both depression and anxiety brought on by the incident. This last spring, she finally went to a lawyer after being told to take two weeks off of work because Roethlisberger would be coming to the casino again for the golf outing. Because she did not go to police and waited a year before filing her lawsuit, experts do not believe she will prevail. When it comes to "he said/she said" situations without witnesses and a police report, oftentimes the most that comes from it is a possible out of court settlement between the victim and the accused. Statistics show that most rapes go unreported and victims do not always come forward until much later. If you are the victim of sexual assault, you should be able to report the crime-PERIOD. The problem with this is that if you wait to do so, the physical evidence is gone. You will have a tough road ahead trying to convince others what occured. Unfortunately there is the problem with the general public and convincing them that you are not accusing their "star" for financial gain. All of this doesn't seem right, but it is the reality. High profile men with money are easy "targets" for those looking to extort money or power, but young women are easy targets for those with the money and popularity to take advantage of. In this case, we can only hope that if her claims are true she is not scared away by fancy lawyers and loud critics. That she is provided with enough legal counsel and support to follow through with her lawsuit instead of feeling the pressure to back down or settle for anything less than a conviction. A victim of sexual assault deserves to see justice served no matter how long ago the assault took place.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/9838764/Criminal-probe-unlikely-in-Roethlisberger-rape-claim

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AsBw7Te8iVxotWFFwfP63OUdsLYF?slug=ap-roethlisbergerlawsuit&prov=ap&type=lgns