Sports

Peyton Manning: Long Lost Sexual Assault Complaint at UT Resurfaces in Title IX Lawsuit

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Highlighted in a lawsuit against the University of Tennessee for fostering a "hostile sexual environment" is a sexual assault complaint against Peyton Manning.

USA Today first reported the incident in Nov. 2003, detailing 74 pages of court documents that described the sexual assault of a female trainer at UT and an alleged cover-up. Yet the newspaper never released the documents and the article published at the time only described the contents.

Shaun King covered the sexual assault complaint against Manning for The New York Daily News, suggesting the absence of Twitter and Facebook may have helped keep this story from becoming a full-blown scandal. King reported obtaining the documents USA Today chose not to release in 2003, detailing them thoroughly (read the full article here).

In Feb. 1996, Dr. Jamie Naughright filed a complaint that Manning laid his bare genitalia and rectum on her face while she was examining an injury of his. In 1997, Naughright agreed in a settlement to leave UT and neither she nor Manning would ever discuss the incident publicly.

But in 2000, Manning and his father Archie released a book in which Peyton described Naughright as having a "vulgar mouth" and being loose sexually with student-athletes. He also described his version of events in her complaint, contending he was "mooning" a teammate when she happened to see him.

For her depiction in the book, Naughright sued the Mannings, their ghostwriter John Warren Underwood, and the Harper Collins Publishing Company in 2001. The two sides reached an agreement in 2004.

One year later, Sports Illustrated reported, Naughright sued Manning a second time for an unspecified breach of the settlement. Like her initial complaint, this too failed to make significant headlines.

But now six women are suing UT for violating the federal gender equity law Title IX by treating the victims of sexual assault unfairly, particularly those who name student-athletes as their assailants, The Tennessean reported.

Separate from his in-depth piece, King reported on Twitter he has seen "the redacted portion of the court documents," which he described as "deep and ugly." King also stated he believes they will soon be released.

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