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Cory Batey at sentencing, April 8, 2016.
WTVF Screenshot
A former Vanderbilt football player has been found guilty of raping an unconscious student and faces more than 20 years in prison.
Cory Batey, 22, of Nashville, was found guilty of aggravated rape, two counts of attempted aggravated rape, facilitation of aggravated rape and three counts of aggravated sexual battery, according to the New York Daily News. The aggravated rape charge alone carries a penalty of 20 to 25 years.
Batey is one of four former football players charged with rape of the female student in a dorm room in June of 2013. The student was unconscious and police say they recovered images and videos from the players’ cell phones. The News reports that one of the players sent video of the assault to friends while it was happening.
Last year, Batey and former player Brandon Vandenburg were co-defendants and found guilty on multiple aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery charges. The verdicts were thrown out after the judge in the case declared a mistrial (lawyers discovered that the jury foreman had been a victim of statutory rape.)
Vandenburg is scheduled for retrial in June, reports the Tennessean. The two others charged and whose case are pending are Jaborian “Tip” McKenzie and Brandon E. Banks.
The News reports that at least five student athletes saw the unconscious woman but did not call for help, including several who testified that they saw her lying partially nude in a dorm hallway.
Batey testified that he had been drinking heavily, blacked out and couldn’t remember what happened.
His defense attorney called Vandenburg the “puppet master” and said Batey was being used as the entertainment by his teammates.
The victim in the case testified she had been dating Vandenburg for about two weeks, and that he encouraged her to drink that night. She said she had no memory of the sexual assault and that she woke up alone in a strange dorm room, feeling sick and not knowing where she was or what happened to her.
The woman discovered what occurred after police showed her some of the images and video recovered from cell phones.
The News reports that Nashville police got involved because Vanderbilt officials contacted them when school surveillance footage showed players carrying an unconscious woman in a dorm.
Read more at the New York Daily News and the Tennessean.
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