Ex-Vanderbilt Football Players Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenburg Leave Jail
Two former football players for the Vanderbilt Commodores who in January were convicted of raping a fellow student, who was unconscious, were released on bond from jail.
The Nashville jail spokesperson said that Corey Batey and Brandon Vandenburg walked out of jail on Wednesday.
Judge Monte Watkins was who made the release of the two men possible a day after he declared a mistrial due to a juror’s misconduct. He then set aside the rape convictions.
He ordered both men to wear monitoring devices containing a GPS if they were released. A lawyer who represents the student who was allegedly raped by the two men would not comment before their release.
Prosecutors said they would seek another trial, but that no date had been set yet on that. Batey and Vandenburg had been accused along with two other football players of assaulting the unconscious female in June of 2013 inside a dorm room.
The other two players have not yet faced trail. However, Batey and Vandenburg have been in jail since this past January after they were found guilty by a jury on multiple rape and aggravated sexual battery counts.
The two were in jail waiting to be sentenced of which both face decades behind bars.
When revelations started that the jury’s foreman was a victim of sexual abuse, it caused the judge to declare a mistrial.
The case had been highly publicized raising a number of troubling questions about sexual abuse and rape on U.S. college campuses and the role that bystanders play who do not act.
Judge Watkins called the mistrial after he determined that the foreman for the juror intentionally withheld personal information about being a statutory rape victim.
There was graphic video in the trial and photos used as evidence showing the woman unconscious being raped inside a dorm room.
The evidence, said prosecutors, was from football players’ footage on cell phones that was taken at the time of the sexual assault.
In addition, the trial had testimony from a number of student athletes at Vanderbilt who saw that the woman had been under distress but did nothing to call her any help.
Both Batey and Vandenburg had been bailed while waiting for but the judge revoked that when they were found guilty in January.
Current bail was set at $350,000 for Batey and $400,000 for Vandenburg. Vandenburg was issued a citation while awaiting the previous trial.
