Bahamas drops rape charges against FIU baseball star WittelsBy DAVID J. NEAL
The Bahamian attorney general officially dropped all rape charges Monday against Florida International University baseball star Garrett Wittels and Wittels’ friends, Jonathan Oberti and Robert Rothschild, according to Wittels’ Miami attorney Richard Sharpstein.
The nolle prosequi (no prosecution) brief was filed before a Bahamian magistrate Monday at 10 a.m. Sharpstein said. Authorities decided the evidence didn’t support prosecution. The three young men, represented in the Bahamas by Thomas Evans and present in court Monday, were accused in December of sexual assault at Nassau’s Atlantis resort by two 17-year-old women.
“It’s over. The fat lady has sung in the Bahamas,” Sharpstein said. “This diabolical scheme to ruin the names of these young men and extort money is over.”
The defendants never denied having sex with the young women. Security camera footage appeared to contradict what the women told Bahamian authorities.
Wittels, a shortstop on FIU’s baseball team, sprung into national sports news a year ago with a 56-game hitting streak that threatened the NCAA record. The streak received coverage on ESPN’s SportsCenter, the nation’s most watched sports news show, and got FIU’s season opener against Southeastern Louisiana live streaming coverage on ESPN3. Wittels went hitless in four plate appearances.
Despite that start, Wittels went on to hit a solid .345 in 2011, a drop from his streak-boosted .412 hitting in 2010. That he wasn’t taken in the 50-round Major League Baseball draft spoke loudly that teams were still worried about the character questions and legal uncertainty brought on by the rape case.
“The negative and drastic effect on Garret is unquestionable and can’t be compensated for,” Sharpstein said. “We have every confidence he’ll be able to get back and slug his way to the major leagues at some point.”
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