No matter the brilliance they sometimes show on the field during a game, some athletes amaze us with their horrible decision-making off the field. They get themselves into bad situations, and those situations can often have dire consequences. Unfortunately, in some of these instances there is a victim involved. Athletes like “Fast” Eddie Johnson, Christian Peter, and most recently, the Steubenville High School football players, have senselessly and brazenly sexually abused and assaulted women, in the process ruining both the victims’ lives and their own.
For every good story like Brian Banks’ recent vindication, there seem to be far more grim ones. The sad reality is that new cases come up all the time, sometimes involving high-profile players like Kobe Bryant and Ben Roethlisberger, and the more famous (and wealthy) athletes are often given leniency when perhaps they do not deserve it. Let’s take a look at how some of these athletes have fared when facing charges of (or related to) rape and sexual assault. Here is a History of Athletes Catching Sexual Assault Charges.