"I told him, "No, please stop,"' says the woman who accuses Travis Johnson of sexual battery.
By BRIAN LANDMAN
Published August 14, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Florida State defensive tackle Travis Johnson sat stoically as his sexual battery trial began Wednesday with emotionally powerful testimony from his accuser.
The woman, an FSU student-athlete, said Johnson, whom she called a friend, ignored her pleas and attacked her on Feb. 6.
"I told him, "No, please stop,"' she said, sobbing.
At one point, the woman's mother began crying, which prompted three of the six female jurors to turn her way.
John Kenny, Johnson's attorney who characterized the case as a "he-said, she-said," made the point on cross-examination that his client and the woman had never dated and had consensual sex on the only three times they had gotten together before Feb. 6.
But the fourth time, the woman said, was different.
"Quit playing. Lose the dream. Nothing's going to happen,"' she said she told Johnson as he maneuvered her into the bedroom. "(Afterward), I was thinking, "This is a nightmare. This can't be happening."'
Kenny repeatedly questioned the woman about Johnson's use of both arms. Johnson, 21, had rotator cuff surgery on his right shoulder in mid January and had a 6-inch suture removed on Feb. 6.
Kenny asked nurse Dorothy McMurry about the pelvic exam she performed Feb. 7. (The woman said she went to the campus health center for a morning-after pill.) McMurry said she believed a yeast infection or an irritation caused the superficial tear.
Meanwhile, one of assistant state attorney Adam Ruiz's biggest concerns is the time line of events.
The accuser didn't contact police until Feb. 18. She said she was raped but didn't name Johnson. She only asked what her options were.
Under questioning from Ruiz, the woman said she had talked to several people at FSU during that time frame, including her coach and Pam Overton, the associate athletic director for student services. By late February, Mary Coburn, the FSU vice president for student affairs, tried to broker a settlement before the situation became a legal matter.
"I was embarrassed, and I wanted him to leave me alone," she said, adding she also didn't want to "ruin" Johnson.
In an e-mail, Coburn wrote the woman on Feb. 27 with the parameters of a deal, including Johnson leaving school for a semester and receiving counseling, no contact between the two and all parties keeping the matter confidential.
Coburn had no comment Wednesday, but she could be called to testify as one of the state's final four witnesses today, when the trial is scheduled to conclude.
Football coach Bobby Bowden and FSU president T.K. Wetherell, who has met with the woman, her father, Johnson and his father, also are possible witnesses. Wetherell had no comment Wednesday about those meetings.
"I'm satisfied we've presented a good case to this point, and I feel that will continue on," Ruiz said.
Kenny said he hopes that after hearing the evidence, the jury "will see what we've seen all along, and that is he's innocent."
Johnson faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if found guilty of the second-degree felony charge.
