University sex investigation widens
 |
Colorado footbal coach Gary Barnett holds up a player handbook during a news conference January 29 in Denver.
Story Tools
|
(CNN) -- Law enforcement investigators are looking to determine whether the University of Colorado athletic department hired an escort service for sex parties for its football players, according to the Broomfield County Sheriff's Department.
The investigation is part of a widening probe that started when three women alleged that they were raped during a sex party with the university's football players in December 2001.
Sheriff spokesman Dan Schuler said the investigation was in its earliest stages, and that authorities will be contacting people in the escort service and investigating any leads they get.
"We just have a lot of investigation to do," Schuler told CNN in a phone interview.
He said his office was told by neighboring Boulder County authorities Tuesday that their investigation of sexual improprieties involving the university football team had spread to Broomfield.
Without commenting on the specifics of the case, Schuler said the athletic department is accused of hiring or utilizing an escort service at the Omni Hotel in a posh area of Broomfield.
A local television station spoke to a woman who claimed that a Colorado football office employee contacted her numerous times between 2002 and 2003. She also said he paid thousands of dollars in cash for adult entertainment services provided to individuals at the hotel.
During a Board of Regents meeting Friday, Chancellor Richard Byyny stressed that none of the allegations has been proven.
Byyny acknowledged that the allegations of sex parties by its football team are "serious and need to be addressed."
"We believe the allegations that the football program uses sex as a recruiting tool are not true," Byyny said. "I do not intend to duck that allegation. I will do my best to report what I know about this allegation, and why I believe it false."
He specifically mentioned an alleged sex party at the Omni Hotel on December 6, 2001, involving a recruit that may have been videotaped.
"These are disturbing allegations and we will certainly consider additional information that may be developed, but I have seen nothing to suggest a coach or employee was involved in either a sex party or a sex videotape," he said.
Also Friday, the university named two former lawmakers to head a commission that will investigate the alleged sex parties.
Depositions surfaced last week in which three women claim they were raped at or just after a sex party in Boulder in December 2001.
The district attorney's office did not pursue charges in the case.
He said he had spoken with the football coach and the athletic director about the allegations, and they "emphatically deny that the university ever does anything to arrange for or suggest that sex be used as a recruiting tool."
"Knowing these individuals as I do, I believe them," Byyny said.
But though he maintained the school is innocent, Byyny said, "We need to step back and ask if we can do even more, both in terms of our policies and in their enforcement -- in other words, both in what we say and what we do."
