Woman files lawsuit saying she was raped by Reds P Alfredo Simon
A woman who says she was raped by Cincinnati Reds pitcher Alfredo Simon in April 2013 filed a civil lawsuit in Washington D.C. Superior Court on Thursday.
The lawsuit was filed under a pseudonym, Jane Doe. The woman is seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages.
Simon, 32, is in his third season with the Reds. He signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1999 and made his major-league debut with the Baltimore Orioles in 2008, pitching for them in parts of four seasons. He was acquired by the Reds on waivers in April 2012 and is making $1.5 million this season.
"The allegations are totally baseless," Simon's lawyer, Jack Quinn, told USA TODAY Sports. "Mr. Simon will defend this matter fully and will be totally exonerated."
The Reds declined comment.
Steve Kelly, a lawyer at Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC in Baltimore who is representing the woman, said he worked to gather facts on the case and discussed a resolution with Simon's attorney before filing the lawsuit.
"She knows this is going to be an incredibly traumatic event. It already has been," Kelly said. "You would never subject yourself to that had it not been for a real concern for the potential for this happening to other people."
The Reds were in Washington D.C. starting April 25, 2013, for a four-game series against the Nationals.
According to the complaint, the woman met Simon at The Huxley nightclub on April 27. Kevin Verdin, a man claiming to be Simon's manager, spoke to the woman and her friends and offered them tickets to the Reds-Nationals game the next day.
He introduced the woman to Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto and Simon, who bought her drinks and then said, "We are getting out of here," before hailing a taxi to take them to the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel. According to the complaint, the woman was "visibly intoxicated" and unable to consent.
Simon and the woman arrived around 2:30 a.m. and began kissing, the complaint says.
"However, Defendant abruptly changed his behavior from a romantic encounter to a terrifying physical attack," the complaint says. "As soon as Defendant started to get rough with her, Jane Doe told him to stop. Defendant ignored that plea, pinning Jane Doe down on her stomach while she struggled and continued to demand Defendant stop and get off her."
According to the complaint and the police report the woman filed with Metro Police four days later, Simon tried unsuccessfully to force his penis in the woman's vagina. He then forced his penis into her rectum, "causing Plaintiff to cry out in unbearable physical pain as he continued to rape her anally," the complaint says.
After the alleged assault, the woman returned to The Huxley and told her roommate. A rape kit taken later that morning revealed anal tears, abrasions and protruding tissue, according to the complaint.
"I don't know how those injuries happen without severe force," said Bridgette Harwood, an attorney for the woman and the co-executive director and director of legal services for the Network for Victim Recovery of DC.
According to emails obtained by USA TODAY Sports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia received the report and started to investigate about 24 hours after the woman reported to police on May 2.
The woman testified before a grand jury on May 9, according to Harwood. On May 15, assistant U.S. attorney Sharon Donovan informed the woman's attorney that a decision had been made and scheduled a meeting for the next day.
There she explained that her office would not be pursuing charges in the case, said Harwood.
"It's definitely one of those cases you just can't seem to wrap your mind around it, for me and the advocate," said Harwood. "While I understand their position, I think I would have made a different decision."
Harwood said she asked if the prosecutor had polled the grand jury and was told the decision not to file charges was made by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"I do think she felt like the prosecutors believed her," said Harwood. "I think she wanted them to have the goal to go forward even if they felt they might lose."
Metro Police did not respond to USA TODAY Sports' messages for comment on Thursday.
Bill Miller, Public Information Officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, said in a statement: "We have no comment. ... Generally speaking, however, we note that the U.S. Attorney's Office works closely with the Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement partners and thoroughly investigates allegations of sexual assault."
The woman, 28, has since left her job as a social worker for at-risk children in D.C. and returned home to live with her mother. Harwood said the woman was not aware of her options to pursue the case in civil court, where there is a lower preponderance of evidence standard, until she notified her client.
"She struggled so much with wanting to forget and pretend like this never happened and this external pressure of, 'I owe this to other people not to let him do this to someone else,'" said Harwood.
Simon was previously acquitted of an involuntary manslaughter charge in his native Dominican Republic.
He was accused in the New Year's 2011 shooting death of Michel Castillo Almonte, 25, as Simon and others fired shots in the air in celebration. Then a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, Simon spent three months in jail during the investigation.
At the time of his acquittal, Simon's attorney said prosecution witnesses said they did not see Simon fire a gun and that the bullet taken from Castillo Almonte's body did not match Simon's gun.
Simon is 3-1 with a 1.30 ERA in four starts for the Reds this season. He last pitched Wednesday, allowing two runs over 6 2/3 innings as the Reds beat the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Contributing: Steve Berkowitz and Bob Nightengale