University of Washington football player Tylin “Tybo” Rogers was allowed to continue playing last fall while Seattle police were investigating him for allegedly raping one woman, and remained on the team as he was being investigated for raping another woman and allegedly assaulting a bicyclist in the University District last month.
Seattle police arrested the 18-year-old near Husky Stadium on Friday morning. Rogers was charged in King County Superior Court with second- and third-degree rape and was released after posting a bond for 10% of his $300,000 bail, records show.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it “rush filed” the charges, which is reserved for more serious cases in which there’s greater interest in keeping the defendant in custody.
Rogers, his attorney and members of his family did not respond to inquiries Wednesday from The Seattle Times. University of Washington officials have been similarly tight-lipped, declining to say if Rogers remains in school, citing federal student privacy laws. He is still listed as part of the team’s online roster, and participated in Washington’s spring practices as recently as April 4.
“UW cooperated and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement in this matter,” university spokesperson Genevieve Haas said in a statement Wednesday. “As a result of this arrest, new information has been made available to the UW, and this information will be fully investigated.”
As questions about UW’s handling of Rogers swirled around Montlake, a spokesperson for current athletic director Pat Chun said he would not comment on Rogers.
Court documents posted Wednesday described a pair of rape allegations, occurring in October and November last year, against Rogers and referenced a March incident involving his alleged assault on a bicyclist. The Seattle Police Department said Wednesday its investigation into Rogers “has been underway since October and continues today.”
Camden Malone, a 21-year-old Shoreline Community College student, told The Times that Rogers attacked him while he was biking home from work in March, and described Rogers’ release from jail as troubling news.
“I just feel so bad for those women,” he said. “It worries me for him to be out after being arrested — I’m terrified to even ride my bike home.”
The allegations
According to charging documents, a 19-year-old woman contacted Seattle police on Oct. 28 to report that Rogers had sexually assaulted her five days prior.
The woman, a Seattle Central College student, agreed to let Rogers visit her at her Capitol Hill apartment the evening of Oct. 23, about three months after the pair “matched” on Tinder, but told him that she was not interested in having sex, records show.
After the woman’s roommate left the apartment to go to work, Rogers allegedly grabbed the woman by her face and jaw and tried to force her to perform oral sex. The woman told police she was scared and that she told Rogers “we shouldn’t do it,” but he continued assaulting her for about 10 minutes. Rogers then pushed the woman’s head into the couch and continued assaulting her, and later pushed her onto the ground, according to the affidavit.
After Rogers left her apartment, the woman wiped her body with towels and brought them to Harborview Medical Center to complete a sexual assault kit, according to court documents.
The same day she reported the assault to law enforcement, Rogers, a backup running back, carried the ball twice for 12 yards as Washington defeated Stanford 42-33.
The woman posted on Instagram about the assault about a month later, warning people Rogers was unsafe. According to the affidavit, Rogers called the woman on Nov. 28, asking why she was accusing him of assault. She also filed a Title IX complaint, which triggered a federally mandated internal investigation, with UW the same day, records show.
Around the same time as the woman’s social media post, Washington suspended Rogers from team activities, according to court records. He wasn’t in Las Vegas on Dec. 1 for the Pac-12 championship game, when Washington beat Oregon 34-31. Rogers’ suspension was never officially announced by the athletic department or the coaching staff.
Police investigators believe there’s a connection between the Title IX complaint and Rogers being taken off the active travel roster for the Pac-12 championship game.
“We’re working through some things, some challenges he’s had off the field,” Ryan Grubb, the team’s offensive coordinator, told Sports Illustrated’s FanNation site Inside the Huskies on Dec. 13.
“I can’t comment on what it was exactly, but Tybo’s done a great job with being here, listening to directions and just working through this moment and really being a good steward of the team,” he said.
Grubb did not respond Wednesday to two interview requests by The Times.
Rogers returned to practice Dec. 15. He played in both the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 against Texas and the College Football Playoff championship game against Michigan on Jan. 8.
Then, a 22-year-old woman contacted Seattle police on Feb. 23. She said Rogers raped her between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
The woman, a UW student, told police she met Rogers at a Halloween party at a house on the campus’ Greek row. The pair “matched” on Tinder about two weeks later and decided to meet at her off-campus University District apartment two days later, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Rogers became forceful within a minute of entering the woman’s apartment, ordering her to remove her clothes and throwing her onto a bed, the affidavit states. He allegedly sexually assaulted the woman for about 20 minutes while she repeatedly yelled at him to stop, and at one point choked her.
She told police Rogers left immediately after the alleged assault. The woman said her face and neck were red and sore after the attack.
Discipline process
Rogers — a 5-foot-11, 185-pound running back from Bakersfield, Calif. — made his first Washington appearance as a true freshman against Michigan State on Sept. 16 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Mich. He had 15 carries for a game-best 74 yards as the Huskies won 41-7.
But he’d waited for his Washington debut, after missing the first two games of the season serving a suspension for violating unspecified team rules.
“I don’t have a specific timeline [for getting Rogers back],” Kalen DeBoer, the Washington football coach at the time, said on Aug. 6. “I’m hoping that it isn’t too long. We’ll play it day by day.”
The disciplinary process for student-athletes is separate to any actions the university takes for violations of the general student code of conduct, which can lead to expulsion from the school.
According to Washington’s student-athlete handbook, all student-athletes, coaches and staff must report known or suspected violations of the social, community and athletic responsibilities to the athletic department administrators, who may suspend the student for more serious issues, including a criminal investigation. The handbook states only the athletic director can lift a suspension.
Troy Dannen was Washington’s athletic director at the time, but left in March, after less than six months in Seattle, to take the same job at the University of Nebraska. He declined to comment when contacted by The Times on Wednesday.
DeBoer, now the coach at Alabama, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Traumatic” assault
Less than a month after the second rape allegation involving Rogers was sent to SPD, Malone said he was beaten up.
Malone said he was biking home from work on 17th Avenue Northeast near Northeast 50th Street — about 1 mile northwest of Husky Stadium — around noon March 8 when he heard two men yelling at him from a car behind him. One of the men was Rogers, Malone said.
The men yelled at Malone to get out of the street, cursing at him and flipping him off, Malone said. They all stopped at a red light, but when the light turned green, Malone said the car sped in front of him and started trying to push his bike off the road.
Malone said he spat at the driver and sped off, with the car chasing after him.
Malone said he got off his bike and ran down a staircase at the University Lutheran Church off 16th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 50th Street. Malone said Rogers and the second man, both wearing matching UW shirts and sweatpants, followed him down to the bottom of the stairwell, where Rogers shoved him onto his bike and slapped him in the face, breaking his glasses and causing his mouth to bleed. The other man spat on Malone before the two men walked away, he said.
Malone said he told a detective he suspected the men were part of a UW team because of their clothing. After getting security camera footage from the church, the detective sent photos of the men to UW’s athletics department, which confirmed their identities, Malone said. According to the detective, one of those men — Rogers — was wanted for other crimes, Malone said.
Tim Robinson, a Seattle City Attorney’s Office spokesperson, said Wednesday that the office is still reviewing Malone’s case and therefore couldn’t comment. But in court documents accusing Rogers of rape, Seattle police referenced the assault on Malone in their objection to Rogers’ release, writing: “If released, Rogers is likely to commit another violent crime.”
On Friday, a Seattle detective called Malone to say Rogers and the second man were arrested that day — an update he said “thrilled” him.
“The assault was traumatic for me, but I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the rape cases,” said Malone, who lives in Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood. “If I had to go through that, at least it helped them get that guy arrested for those charges.”
News researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story.