Former U. of Minnesota Players to Stand Trial on Rape Charges

MADISON, Wis. — The sexual assault trial of three former University of Minnesota basketball players will begin Monday, six months after they were accused of repeatedly raping a woman for several hours.

Mitchell Lee, 21, Kevin Smith, 21, and George Williams Jr., 20, have been charged with a total of 12 first-degree sexual assault charges.

The pre-trial proceedings were long, grueling exercises, involving a number of motions that, for the most part, were denied by Dane County Circuit Judge George Northrup.

Some of the rejected motions were requests for a change of venue because of pre-trial publicity, a separate trial for Williams, suppression of the woman’s identification of Williams and dismissal of the charges.

The 19-year-old woman bringing the charges claimed she was raped for several hours by the men at the Concourse Hotel in Madison Jan. 24, after a Wisconsin-Minnesota basketball game.

Testimony in preliminary hearings revealed she had been at a party earlier in the evening with Lee and Smith, and agreed to go to their hotel. She testified she was told there would be a party there with many people.