Huskies’ Rogers charged on two rape allegations
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
Washington running back Tybo Rogers was arrested Friday and charged with two instances of rape that allegedly took place during the 2023 football season, according to charging documents obtained by ESPN.
Rogers was charged with second- and third-degree rape and posted bail of $150,000, according to Seattle police. He will be arraigned on April 18.
“The University of Washington Intercollegiate Athletics Department is aware of the arrest of a football student-athlete by the Seattle Police Department,” UW Athletics said in a statement. “The student-athlete has been suspended from all team activities until further notice. The UW will continue to gather facts and cooperate with law enforcement, as requested.”
Rogers was suspended from team activities near the end of November and did not travel with the team for the Pac-12 championship game on Dec. 1, according to a certification for determination of probable cause document, written by a Seattle police detective. He later appeared in the College Football Playoff semifinal and championship games.
According to the document, one of the women, a University of Washington student, reported her assault to the university’s Title IX office on Nov. 28. It also says there were “multiple emails sent within the University of Washington Athletic Department confirming Rogers should be taken off the travel roster for the Pac-12 Championship game.”
None of the emails, according to the detective’s report, contained information for why Rogers should not travel to the game.
There were also text messages referencing Rogers and questions being asked about what was going on with him by different people including Rogers’ father,” the detective wrote.
The detective concluded, based on the proximity to when the Title IX report was filed, that his suspension was related to the allegation.
Then-Washington athletic director Troy Dannen, who left for Nebraska last month, declined comment through a spokesperson.
“As soon as we found out about any allegations, [we] suspended him indefinitely from the program,” said UW coach Jedd Fisch, who was hired in January to replace Kalen DeBoer after DeBoer left to coach at Alabama following the season.
The first alleged rape happened in late October. Rogers met the woman, a student at Seattle Central Community College, on the dating app Tinder, according to police. The assault took place inside her apartment, after which she immediately reported it to her mother, who took her to a local hospital for a SANE exam (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner). She reported it to law enforcement on Oct. 28.
Rogers met the second woman, the UW student, at a Halloween party before connecting on Tinder a short time later. After she invited Rogers to her apartment, she told police, he was almost immediately forceful with her. After the sexual assault, the woman told police she experienced redness and soreness on multiple places on her body.
On Nov. 28, after the second woman reported her assault to UW’s Title IX office, police said Rogers called her asking her “why she was accusing him of all of this.” The woman has since felt the need to drop out of school and move back with her parents to support her medically and emotionally, according to police.
As a freshman in 2023, Rogers rushed 44 times for 184 yards and had six receptions for 72 yards. He was a three-star recruit out of California’s Bakersfield High School in the Class of 2023.
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Don Van Natta Jr.
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Don Van Natta Jr.
ESPN Senior Writer
- Host and co-executive producer of the new ESPN series, “Backstory”
- Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national, explanatory and public service journalism
- Author of three books, including New York Times best-selling “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush”
- 24-year newspaper career at The New York Times and Miami Herald
FBI agents have reached out to major league baseball players about their knowledge of financial dealings related to a multibillion-dollar group-licensing firm started and owned, in part, by their union and the NFL Players Association, multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation told ESPN.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had direct knowledge of law enforcement calls to at least three players involved in union leadership in recent days. The sources said the players are not targets of the investigation.
According to the sources, law enforcement agents inquired about money related to OneTeam Partners, established in 2019 by the NFLPA, MLBPA and a private-equity partner, RedBird Capital, and used to strike media deals and monetize athletes’ name, image and likeness.
In a statement, OneTeam said it is “aware of an ongoing investigation of allegations concerning our partners. We want to emphasize that OneTeam is not the subject of the investigation and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in any way. OneTeam is fully committed to cooperating with the investigation.”
Union executives said they have not been contacted by federal agents. “If the MLBPA is contacted by the government, we intend to cooperate fully with any investigation,” the MLBPA said Friday in a statement to ESPN. Player leadership has retained separate legal counsel outside of the union, sources said.
Multiple sources said the investigation is being run out of the Eastern District of New York, whose office is based in Brooklyn. A senior FBI official declined to comment Friday, and a spokesperson with the Eastern District declined to confirm the investigation.
The OneTeam partnership has become a major financial boon for both associations and has grown in valuation as it added the players’ unions of women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, and other sports and college athletes to its portfolio. OneTeam was valued at $1.9 billion in 2022, when RedBird Capital sold its 40% stake to three other investment firms.
The MLBPA’s and NFLPA’s relationships with OneTeam have come under scrutiny before. In late 2024, an anonymous unfair labor practices complaint was filed with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging “nepotism, corruption, mismanagement” at the MLBPA.
In December, the NFLPA’s outside counsel, Richard Smith, launched an audit into whether OneTeam had granted equity options to the executive directors of unions that the company represents, including the MLBPA. In its statement, OneTeam said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to following the best business practices, as has already been determined by the independent audit conducted earlier this year. … We remain dedicated to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency in all that we do.”
The NLRB complaint against the MLBPA alleges that the union’s executive director, Tony Clark, “improperly gave himself & other executives equity” in OneTeam and made “inadequate disclosures” about the partnership in annual union filings.
The union has previously denied the allegations against Clark, 52. He was hired as the MLBPA’s director of player relations after 15 seasons as a player and ascended to executive director following the death of his predecessor, Michael Weiner, in 2013. According to an LM-30 federal labor union disclosure he filed last year, Clark holds a seat on the OneTeam board.
Union finances have improved significantly under Clark’s leadership, due in part to proceeds from OneTeam. In 2020-24, the partnership paid the MLBPA nearly $160 million, according to the union’s annual LM-2 reports. In 2024, the union received $44.5 million from OneTeam.
The reports don’t detail how much of the OneTeam windfall was distributed to players. The MLBPA has more than $353 million in total assets, the highest fiscal-year-end figure in its history, according to the documents.
According to the MLBPA’s most recent filing, the union paid Clark $3.5 million in 2024.
The NFLPA’s audit of OneTeam was completed in March and found that the NFLPA’s role as part of OneTeam was “in compliance with best governance practices,” a source with firsthand knowledge said.
An NFLPA spokesperson declined comment Friday.
According to its LM-2s, OneTeam paid the NFLPA $422.8 million in the past five years. The NFLPA’s total assets are nearly $1.4 billion, with almost $240 million in cash, according to the union’s filings.
DeMaurice Smith, the former NFLPA leader who co-founded OneTeam with Clark, left the union in 2023 and was replaced on the partnership’s board by the union’s new executive director, Lloyd Howell Jr.
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