After a three-week trial, a jury has found two former Vanderbilt University football players guilty of the 2013 rape of a female student. Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenburg were accused of filming themselves and other players having sex with the unconscious student in a campus dorm. On Tuesday, they were found guilty on all 16 counts of aggravated rape and sexual battery. The players, who face decades in prison, will be sentenced in March. Two other former Vanderbilt athletes are still set to stand trial in relation to the rape, including one football player who transferred to play at Alcorn State University after he was suspended from Vanderbilt.
"Many months ago Vanderbilt found both defendants responsible for violating our sexual misconduct policy, and we quickly discharged both of them from the football team and subsequently expelled them from the university," Beth Fortune, Vanderbilt's vice chancellor for public affairs, said in a statement. "We are confident we acted appropriately."
Tuesday's verdict was delivered as more than 430 representatives from 76 colleges and universities in Tennessee, including Vanderbilt, gathered at a summit focused on preventing campus sexual assault.