STILLWATER, Okla. – Prosecutors asked Thursday that more charges be filed against Oklahoma State basketball player Darrell Williams, who is already facing four felony counts that accuse him of inappropriately touching two female students.
During a full day of testimony in Payne County District Court, both women said Williams reached into their pants against their will during a December party in Stillwater. One said she was held up against a fence and later against a truck, and the other claimed she was groped after turning away an earlier advance by Williams.
Williams, 21, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual battery and three counts of rape by instrumentation. Prosecutors are now asking the judge to add another count of rape by instrumentation, along with sexual battery and kidnapping.
Judge Michael Stano said a ruling won't come until Monday because he needs to review whether to allow the defense to call witnesses.
The first accuser to take the stand alleged that Williams groped her on her way into a cellar area where a party was being held at a Stillwater house. She said he then fondled her outside the home after she approached him to ask if he'd taken her driver's license and $10 out of her back pocket during their first run-in.
A second woman claimed that Williams reached into her pants inside the house, again while pressed up against a fence outside and then a third time while she was being held up against a parked truck. She claimed that Williams forcibly moved her from the fence to the truck, leading prosecutors to request the kidnapping charge.
Assistant District Attorney Jill Tontz sought the sexual battery charge after the woman testified that Williams also forced her to reach into his pants.
Defense attorney Willie Baker argued that "it's duplicitous what they're seeking to do."
Both women testified that they told Williams to stop touching them, and that they were not injured and their clothes were not damaged.
Baker questioned the women repeatedly about how they came to identify Williams, who they hadn't met prior to that night, and the usage of team photos during the process. While responding to an objection by Tontz, Baker said his line of questioning was "about the impossibility of what's been testified here today."
"You haven't stopped to think about whether: Could Darrell Williams be over here with you and over here with her?" he asked the second witness a few moments later. "You hadn't stopped to think about that?"
"All I know is what happened to me," she responded.
Williams, wearing a gray sweater with a black neckline, sat silently at a table during the hearing.
Williams averaged 7.1 points and 7.3 rebounds in 23 games, including 12 starts, in his first season after transferring to Oklahoma State from Midland College in Texas. The Chicago native was suspended for the remainder of the season after being charged on Feb. 7.
The two women described running into Williams, teammate Marshall Moses and another man, Yayi Janneh, at their last stop on a night of bar-hopping. The men allegedly invited them and a third woman to the party in the early morning hours of Dec. 13, where the women described seeing people smoking marijuana in the basement.
The second accuser who testified said a group of about four men she believed to be Oklahoma State basketball players gathered around her and rubbed their hands on her body before Williams approached and stuck his hand down her pants and inside her underwear. She testified that she was able to break free by falling onto the floor and crawling and then running toward the door, but Williams then grabbed her from behind and fondled her again.
No other Oklahoma State basketball players face charges related to the party.
Janneh, 23, faces two felony counts of sexual battery. No court dates are scheduled in his case. Charges stemming from the party also were filed against Zachary Logan Thomason, 20, who has pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Two of Williams' teammates, Jean-Paul Olukemi and Roger Franklin, sat in the courtroom and watched the proceedings. Several other teammates are on the list of potential witnesses and are not allowed in the courtroom during testimony.
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