Star player still on court despite alleged rape
By JARED STRONG and MATTHEW REZAB
j.strong@carrollspaper.com
Copyright ©2015 Daily Times Herald
JEFFERSON
The Greene County Community School student section erupted into applause Thursday night when the name “Trey Tucker” — the hometown basketball team’s star point guard — boomed over the loudspeakers, and he slapped hands with teammates before tip-off.
It was business as usual — a happy moment — that belies a dark shadow over the boy’s and team’s futures.
Tucker, 17, was accused in August of raping a former Greene County student — now a young college woman with long, dark hair and big, brown eyes — who was named queen of some high school activities and earned several scholarships to pay for her education. She accuses him of ignoring her refusal to have sex after the two left a rural party where they drank alcohol, both underage.
The Daily Times Herald does not name the victims of sexual crimes without their permission.
He was suspended for four games during the high school football team’s 2015 season — he joined the day after investigators sought to question him about the alleged rape — and preserved his starting status on the basketball team, where he excels.
Tucker is among the highest-scoring players in Class 3A and averages more than 22 points per game. He was named third-team all-state by Prep Hoops Iowa last season during, which his team won six games and lost 15.
Under current school policy, he will be held out of no basketball games, unless the district’s school board takes extraordinary measures.
The school district’s student “good conduct policy” treats crimes the same, whether it’s underage possession of alcohol, an assault on a teacher or felony rape, for which Tucker faced up to 10 years in prison before his case was transferred to juvenile court this morning.
First offense: miss one-quarter of the matches for the current sport.
Second offense: miss half.
Third offense: miss an entire school year.
Fourth offense: miss all activities, forever.
This was Tucker’s first offense, but the rape allegation has forced school officials to re-examine the policy. The district’s board of directors is set to discuss the issue next week.
Tim Christensen, the district’s superintendent, said the code of conduct is expected to be revised in two ways:
— Students would not be able to join a sport late in which they would not normally participate after they break school rules so that they serve a possible suspension in that sport rather than in one they would usually participate. Tucker has been accused of joining the football team after practices had already begun merely to avoid suspension during the basketball season.
— Students would face harsher punishments for more-severe crimes.
Christensen wasn’t sure whether either of the changes could be retroactively applied to a student who has already been punished.
Student conduct policies vary widely across the state, said Brett Nanninga, an associate executive director for the Iowa High School Athletic Association in Boone.
“That’s all over the board,” he told the Times Herald today. “The trump card was always this: The coaches always reserved the right to sit a kid based on conduct. ... If you’re a poor representation of our school, our team, our community, you’re not going to play.”
Jeramie Hinote, the head coach of the Greene County team, could not be reached this morning to comment for this article.
School board members also have broad authority to punish students accused of engaging in illegal behavior — regardless of whether the students are formally charged with or convicted of a crime.
According to Greene County School District’s policy, students can be punished for “engaging in any act that would be grounds for arrest or citation in criminal or juvenile court system, regardless of whether the student was cited, arrested, convicted or adjudicated (in juvenile court) for the act.”
In November, Carroll Community school leaders — who have a similar policy — were set to consider the expulsion of a middle school student less than a week after she made a bomb threat, but the student left the district on her own accord.
It has been more than three months since the alleged rape.
It’s unclear why Greene County board members have waited until now to tackle the issue, but a local renowned journalist and community activist, Chuck Offenburger, called Thursday for Tucker to quit the remainder of the season.
In an online essay on the website Offenburger.com titled “Our local high school basketball star Trey Tucker should stand up for honor now and bench himself,” Offenburger claimed Tucker deliberately circumvented a basketball suspension by joining the football team and said he should “acknowledge he does not deserve to play this season.”
“To stay close to the game, which he should do, he can volunteer to be one of the team’s student managers — and be a good one,” Offenburger wrote.
But Tucker’s criminal court fight could thwart his future on the basketball court.
He initially faced a felony sex-abuse charge in adult district court that his high-profile Des Moines attorneys asked a judge to move to juvenile court, where the punishment is far less severe and less public.
District Judge William Ostlund decided today to transfer the case to juvenile court.
Tucker might be required to register as a sex offender if he is found delinquent, which would restrict his contact with other juveniles.
According to court documents and Greene County Sheriff Steve Haupert:
Tucker and his alleged victim drank alcohol at an underage drinking party near Dana in northern Greene County on Aug. 22.
They left the party for a nearby farm building.
“They were partying,” Haupert told the Daily Times Herald. “What led to what, I’m not going to say. ... She, at some point in the night, she said (that) she said ‘No.’ ”
Their stories conflict, he said.
But not long after the alleged rape at about 1:30 a.m. Aug. 23, the young woman went to Greene County Medical Center in Jefferson and reported that she had been sexually assaulted.
Her mom was with her.
“I had (the victim) go through the events of last night again from the beginning,” a Greene County Sheriff’s deputy wrote in his criminal complaint against Tucker. “When it came to the sexual parts, (the victim) requested her mother to leave the room.
“(The victim) was raped by Trey Tucker.”
The deputy called Tucker’s father to bring Tucker to the sheriff’s office to talk. They both agreed, at first, to talk.
“I began to explain to Trey why he was there, and (the father) stopped me and requested to speak with Trey.”
The father, Tim Tucker, later asked for an attorney, and there was no more talk.
Tim Tucker declined to comment for this article.
A Boone attorney represented Trey Tucker for a month before he hired a well-known defense firm in Des Moines, which led to a request to move Tucker’s prosecution from adult to juvenile court.
He was initially charged in adult court because he faces a so-called forcible felony and is older than 15.
His new lawyers solicited 33 glowing letters of support for the transfer from friends, family, teachers, church companions and a pastor.
“Despite the fact that I believe these accusations are unfounded and completely false, the real travesty would be trying this case in adult court,” wrote Michael Giles, a senior lecturer in the department of music at Iowa State University whose son played basketball with Tucker.
There were no letters against the transfer, and in a court hearing last week to determine whether the case would go to juvenile court, Tucker’s supporters far outnumbered those of his alleged victim.
A juvenile court officer who reviewed Tucker’s past recommended the transfer, under which his potential treatment and confinement could end when he’s 18 or continue for an additional 18 months.
Nanninga, of the athletic association, said several parents have called him, hoping he could force Greene County to bench Tucker. But Nanninga has no such authority over local school districts.
“You’re innocent until proven guilty — that has to be allowed to play itself out,” said Nanninga, who was also a high school principal and superintendent in Iowa for 26 years. “The law and the order don’t move as fast as we’d like them to. It’s in that in-between time that there’s gray area and controversy and opinions formed, and that doesn’t make it easy.
“Is there enough evidence to prosecute and persecute?”
Assistant Sports Editor Marty Ball contributed to this article.
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