Ex-Northwestern Student Charged With Sex Assault Seeks To Dismiss Case

SKOKIE, IL — The former Northwestern University student accused of sexually assaulting a fellow college freshman has asked a judge to dismiss charges against him, arguing through his attorneys it would be a "gross miscarriage of justice" for the case to proceed to trial.

Scott Thomas, 23, of Bernardsville, New Jersey, faces 64 felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual abuse against a student in connection with his March 16, 2019, arrest on the university's Evanston campus.

Prosecutors said Thomas' assault of the heavily intoxicated woman was caught on camera and interrupted by a trio of graduate students around 2:15 a.m. outside the Jacobs Center.

In a written statement describing the "sexual assault in progress" she witnessed, one of the other students said Thomas seemed lucid — but the woman he is charged with assaulting was unable to stand on her own or answer questions about her name or date of birth, according to court records.

"It was clear to me that she was not at all an active participant in this sexual act or a consenting one based on the fact he had her pinned up against the door (w/her face/hands pushed up on the door) and he was having to hold her up like that because she could not hold herself up," the witness wrote.

Another of the graduate students said in her written statement that "it quickly became clear that the woman was not consenting to the contact." The third wrote that it was clear that Thomas had "assaulted a woman obviously unable to consent."

According to prosecutors, video shows the 6-foot, 5-inch, 200-pound Thomas repeatedly lifted the almost completely naked woman up off the concrete after she collapsed while being assaulted against the glass doors of the business school building.

She suffered contusions, abrasions, scratches and cuts from the falls, which form the basis of some of the counts of the indictment that Thomas is seeking to dismiss, according to court records.

One of the graduate students said in her statement that as soon as she and the other witnesses let Thomas know they were there, he quickly zipped up his pants and let the woman fall to the ground. As the first officer showed up at the scene, the witness said Thomas pulled the woman up and put her underwear back on, according to prosecutors' summary of her statement.

More than two and a half hours later, the blood alcohol concentration of the woman Thomas is accused of assaulting was 0.294, more than three times the legal limit. The next afternoon, she did not remember anything after drinking at least six alcoholic drinks and leaving a party with Thomas, records show.

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Thomas is currently represented by Damon Cheronis, Donna Rotunno and Ryan Levitt, who have filed motions to dismiss the indictment and exclude evidence resulting from his "illegal arrest and interrogation."

The prominent Chicago-based criminal defense attorneys also represented disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in his 2020 New York criminal trial, in which the #MeToo movement catalyst was convicted of rape and criminal sexual assault and acquitted of two counts of predatory sexual assault before being sentenced to 23 years in prison.

According to Thomas' defense attorneys, prosecutors made an "intentionally misleading, inaccurate, and deceptive presentation to the grand jury." Only one witness testified at the hearing, Sanghoon Lee, an officer with the university's private police force.

"Instead of stating any facts that would have offered an honest look at the evidence, the state deceptively and inaccurately disclosed what they characterized as unwanted contact and the ostensible unwanted contact alone. In doing so, the event was portrayed in an entirely misleading way — devoid of any context or evidence that [the woman] was actively engaging in consensual activity with Mr. Thomas," they argued, questioning whether Thomas knew that the woman was not a willing participant.

"Lee painted an inaccurate version of the events to support his highly questionable conclusion that Mr. Thomas was aware of [the woman's] inebriated state to the point that he should have known she could not consent," the defense attorneys said.

Thomas' attorneys said Lee was aware that the intoxicated woman had confided in a friend that although she had initially planned on leaving the party with another person, she said she planned to voluntarily leave with Thomas.

"Through the course of witness interviews during the week following the incident, it was made known to law enforcement that the rationale for Mr. Thomas and [the woman] splitting from the group was because they intended to 'hook up,'" the attorneys argued, "that is, to engage in mutually consensual sexual activities."

The host of the apartment party where Thomas and the woman first met told investigators they both appeared intoxicated when they left around 12:45 a.m., and a partygoer said, at that point, the woman "seemed fine and not to the point of falling over," the attorneys said, noting that no evidence was presented to the grand jury that Thomas was also drinking, or that witnesses thought the woman was in control when she left the party.

"Moreover, the police were in possession of evidence that individuals who observed the two together believed, based on their mutual interactions, that they were going to engage in some form of mutually desired romantic or sexual activity," argued Cheronis, Rotunno and Levitt. "These omissions were deceptive and precluded the grand jury from returning a meaningful indictment."

According to the defense attorneys, Lee's testimony that the woman could not speak coherently when officers encountered her, Thomas and the trio of graduate students outside the Jacobs Center was also misleading.

They cited statements from witnesses and emergency medical technicians that the woman remembered which dorm she lived in and said she "did not want to tell the police any information because she was afraid of getting in trouble" and that she "didn't want to get anyone in trouble."

Thomas’ attorneys argued that shows that prosecutors withheld information from the grand jury that "reflected awareness and cognition at the relevant time," records show.

Cheronis and Levitt did not respond to a request for comment about the case. Rotunno declined to comment.

In response to the motion to dismiss the indictment, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Heather Kent said it was "improper and premature" for Thomas' attorneys to ask a judge to look beyond the charges to the merits of the case in a pretrial motion. The prosecution is under no obligation to present exculpatory evidence at the grand jury stage, she argued, and contesting evidence is a matter for trial.

"Credibility and veracity are fact issues that are not ripe for a motion to dismiss indictment," Kent said. "The state had no obligation to present evidence of [Thomas'] alcohol consumption, although, interestingly, [Thomas] denied drinking alcohol the night of the assault to officers."

Kent rejected the suggestion that the grand jury should have heard evidence about possible consensual contact between Thomas and the woman.

"'Flirting' at a party," Kent said, "has no bearing on whether a sexual assault occurred in this case."

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday before Cook County Circuit Judge Paul Pavlus to determine whether an evidentiary hearing is necessary on Thomas' motion to dismiss the indictment. His motions to exclude evidence are pending separately.

After departing Northwestern University, Thomas was permitted to return home to his parents’ New Jersey home. In June, Pavlus modified the conditions of his bail to remove GPS monitoring and any device used to monitor alcohol consumption.

Related:

• Man Charged With Rape At Northwestern Violates Bond, Stays Free
• Ex-Northwestern Student Indicted On 64 Counts Of Sexual Assault
• Accused Of Rape, Northwestern Student To Return To New Jersey
• Northwestern Freshman Raped By Student On Campus, Prosecutors Say