Perrish Cox
Demaryius Thomas
Camille Washington
Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas testified at former teammate Perrish Cox’s sexual assault trial Wednesday, saying that Cox carried a sleeping woman into his bed and then told Thomas, “I think she’s ready.” Cox is accused of sexually assaulting the woman, who testified earlier Wednesday. Both the woman and Thomas told jurors they kissed on an air mattress at Cox’s apartment after meeting Cox and Cox’s girlfriend at a club.Thomas said the woman fell asleep, and he dismissed Cox’s suggestion, saying he didn’t want to have sex with the woman because she was drunk.
“I wanted to have sex with her but I didn’t,” Thomas testified. “We hadn’t done nothing before. I wasn’t going to try nothing that night because she had been drinking. She had got drunk.”
Cox’s lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, objected to Thomas’ testimony because he hadn’t used the “she’s ready” phrase in a previous interview and asked for a mistrial. The judge rejected that.
Thomas testified that Cox then sat with him in the living room for a while. He said the woman was still in the bedroom when he left about an hour later.
The woman testified that she had a fuzzy memory of what happened that night and suspected she had been drugged after she woke up feeling sick the next day.
Under questioning from Cox’s attorney, the woman said if something had happened with Thomas, she wouldn’t have considered it rape.
“It wouldn’t have been fine but I wouldn’t have seen it as rape if he admitted it,” she said, referring to Thomas. She said Thomas denied that anything had happened. Later, she found out she was pregnant, and she contacted authorities Oct. 28, 2010.
A DNA analyst testified that a paternity test using a sample taken from the woman’s placenta showed that Cox was the father, with more than 99 percent certainty. Thomas and Cox’s roommate, Cassius Vaughn, who was asleep in the apartment at the time of the alleged assault, also submitted DNA samples and were ruled out as the father. Steinberg rebutted the expert’s testimony by suggesting the sample may have been contaminated because it was an expedited request.
Prosecutors Chris Gallo and Bob Chappell present a case that’s straightforward: Cox denies having sex with the woman, who can’t recall having sex that night but became pregnant and Cox’s DNA matched the fetus.
But Steinberg, through cross examination of the prosecutors’ witnesses, paints a picture of partying and failed sexual relations between Thomas and the woman, and possible sexual relations between the woman and Cox’s girlfriend, Carthy Che. Thomas testified that the alleged victim was the aggressor when she jumped in the front seat with him and they started kissing as they drove with Cox and Che to Cox’s apartment.
The alleged victim testified that she didn’t think she was drunk because she said she could have between 10 and 15 drinks without blacking out.
Che also testified but rambled at times and couldn’t recall whether she spoke to an investigator who was sitting in the courtroom. In a question sent through Douglas County District Judge Paul King, jurors asked whether she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Thomas said the woman and Che appeared fine and were able to walk up the stairs to the apartment.
Thomas sent the woman a text message around noon that day to ask if she remembered what happened earlier, which the woman told police she found suspicious. Thomas said he sent the text after Vaughn told him at practice that Che and the accuser had “girl-on-girl action.”
“I asked if she hooked up with Che,” Thomas testified. He said he stopped texting her after she didn’t respond to about five messages.
Cox has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault while the victim was physically helpless and one count of sexual assault while the victim was incapable of determining the nature of the conduct. He faces two years to life in prison if convicted.
