Two Brown undergraduates were asked to leave campus in late April amidst a criminal investigation by the Providence Police Department into an allegation that the students sexually assaulted a female Providence College student in November, the Providence Journal reported Friday.
Both Brown students were first-year students at the time, the Journal reported.
Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, told The Herald the two students remain enrolled as undergraduates but said the University’s policy is not to discuss “individual student matters.”
The University learned of the criminal investigation in February when the PC student, also then a first-year, filed an official complaint with the Providence Police against the two Brown students, Quinn wrote in an email to The Herald.
“Brown has cooperated fully with law enforcement,” Quinn wrote. “The University considers first and foremost the safety and security of campus and makes decisions in a timely way based on the best information available.”
Quinn declined to comment on what might have changed between the time the University was first notified of the investigation in February and its directive for the students to leave campus in late April.
The Providence Police Department and the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office are currently considering whether to convene a grand jury — a move that could lead to an indictment of the two students — according to the Journal.
In her complaint, the PC student said she met the two Brown students, both members of the football team, at Louie’s Tavern, a bar near PC that closed earlier this year after its liquor license was revoked for serving alcohol to minors, the Journal reported.
The PC student reported to the police that she had known one of the Brown students since third grade.
She recalled feeling “drugged,” despite having had only one shot of alcohol.
She told police that after being brought to a taxi, she awoke in a bed in a Brown dorm room next to one of the Brown students. The other Brown student then asked her to perform oral sex on him, according to a police report describing the incident.
The PC student told the police she left the dorm room early the next morning before going to the hospital later that night.
Shortly after the complaint was filed, PC barred the two Brown students from its campus via a No Trespass order, according to the Journal. The female student also won a restraining order against them around the same time, NBC 10 reported.
A lawyer for one of the Brown students filed a countersuit in Rhode Island Superior Court against the female student in May, asserting that the she had made “false and defamatory statements” that damaged his client’s reputation, the Journal reported. The court later dismissed the countersuit.
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