Vanderbilt Rape: Brandon Banks Sentenced To 15 Years

NASHVILLE, TN — Brandon Banks, a former Vanderbilt Commodores football player, will spend 15 years in prison for raping a female student in an on-campus dorm room in 2013, a Nashville judge ruled Friday.

Banks’ sentencing Friday follows a June jury conviction for one count each of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery in June. He is the third former Commodore convicted in the case.

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The trial of Banks' former teammates, Brandon Vandenburg and Corey Batey, was declared a mistrial after it was discovered the jury foreman had not disclosed during jury selection that he was the victim of a sexual assault. Both Vandenburg and Banks were found guilty in a subsequent trial and sentenced to 17 and 15 years in prison, respectively. A fourth defendant, Jaborian McKenzie, pleaded not guilty and has testified against his former teammates in all three trials heretofore.

Banks' defense team asserted that he had a lower level of culpability than the others because he was goaded into participating in the rape, though the prosecution dismissed it as an excuse, because extensive cell phone video taking of the brutal attack did not corroborate his explanation.

The crucial evidence for the prosecution, as it had been in the previous trials, was 41 extremely graphic images and videos of the rape itself, taken on the men's cell phones. Surveillance footage from the dorm showed Banks carrying the victim's "lifeless" body into Vandenburg's dorm room. The prosecution said Banks used a water bottle to rape the woman, while taking photos with his phone.

The victim, as she has in the previous trials, testified once again.

Photo by Lacy Atkins/The Tennessean via AP, Pool