Former UI football player accused of rape pleads not guilty

The woman who alleges she was raped by former University of Idaho football player Kyree Curington at a campus dormitory in December shed several tears and reached for tissues multiple times during an almost two-hour examination Thursday in Latah County Magistrate Court in Moscow.

Judge Megan Marshall even called for a five-minute recess after the woman was overcome with emotion trying to recount details of the early hours of Dec. 7.

After a roughly four-hour preliminary hearing, Marshall found sufficient evidence to bind Curington over to Latah County 2nd District Court, where he pleaded not guilty in front of Judge John Judge to the felony rape charge.

The woman told the court she repeatedly told Curington “no” and even tried to push him off her during the alleged incident.

She said she previously started communicating with Curington, who posted bond in December and sat next to his Coeur d’Alene attorney Robyn McPherson on Thursday, earlier that week after he reached out to her on Instagram.

She said she then encountered him for the first time at Stubblefields in Pullman the night of the alleged crime.

The woman said she and Curington left the bar around 2 a.m. Dec. 7. They headed back to Moscow, dropped one friend off at the dorms and then they went to a parking lot to smoke marijuana — the first time she smoked the substance, she said.

The woman said she only took “one hit,” but the drug made her feel “really loose” and “something that I’ve never felt before.”

She said she eventually returned to her dorm and relaxed for a while before Curington, who lived at the same dormitory, messaged her through Snapchat.

After messaging back and forth, she said she eventually let him into her wing of the building and the two walked together to her dorm. She said she told him she just wanted to sleep and that the two did not converse about sex when they entered her room.

The woman said they got into her top bunk bed and started cuddling. Her roommate was allegedly lying in her bottom bunk bed at the time.

She said Curington started kissing her and she went along with it.

“I wasn’t really trying to kiss him back,” the woman said.

She said he then reached down her shorts and whispered in her ear if she wanted to perform oral sex.

“I don’t do that kind of stuff — never have,” she told the court.

She said he started touching her “down there.”

The woman said she could not really move because she was tucked under him. He started pressing his weight on her, she said, so she could not push him off.

She said he told her that he had a condom and she responded she does not do that and that it would hurt.

The woman said she kept saying “no” and he remained on top of her as he started to have sex with her.

The woman said she asked where Curington’s condom was because she said “if it has to happen,” she wanted to be safe, but she told the court she still did not want to have sex.

“I didn’t want it,” she told the court, sobbing.

The woman said she started crying during the alleged incident, but he continued having sex with her.

She said she tried to hit him in the stomach and also attempted to make the bed move to wake her roommate.

The woman said he eventually kissed her and left, saying he had a football meeting in the morning and his roommate was locked out of their dorm room.

“I was in shock and didn’t know what happened so I laid there for a while,” she said, adding that she could not move.

The woman said she called a friend who came over and she went to Gritman Medical Center for sexual assault treatment.

During the cross examination, McPherson asked if her memory of the night would have been better if she had not smoked, and the woman said, “Maybe.” She said she felt she still would have made the same choices if she had not smoked.

Her roommate, who also testified, said she pretended she was sleeping while the alleged incident occurred.

She said she heard the woman say, “No, I don’t do that,” and “I just want to sleep.”

After hearing kissing noises on the top bunk, the roommate said she grabbed her noise-canceling headphones and listened to music on a “very loud” volume.

She said she eventually took her headphones off her left ear and heard the woman crying on the top bunk bed while speaking on the phone.

“I assumed she had just been raped,” the roommate said.

McPherson asked the roommate why she did not try to help her. The roommate responded by saying she was debating within herself if what was happening was consensual.

Moscow Police Department Cpl. Casey Green told the court he responded to Gritman the morning of Dec. 7 and interviewed the woman.

He said he later spoke to Curington at his dorm. Green said Curington told him he did not know the woman, but he may have met a woman by the same name at Stubblefields and that he may have kissed her on the cheek at some point.

He said Curington denied having sex with her.

Green said Curington told him he came back to his dorm after a night out at Stubblefields, but may have gone to the dorm’s basement for a snack. He said Curington would submit to a DNA test but not at that time.

But Green said Curington redacted much of his initial story after police obtained a search warrant for his dorm and collected evidence late at night Dec. 7.

Green said Curington, who had a warrant for his arrest because of the alleged crime, surrendered himself at the Moscow police station Dec. 8. With an attorney present with Curington, Green said Curington told him and others in the interview room that he spoke with the woman at the Pullman bar, and that although they did not return to Moscow together, they did meet up in the early morning hours to sleep in the same bed. Green said Curington told them they had consensual sex.

Curington is scheduled for a pretrial conference May 15 and a jury trial June 17. The penalty for rape is a minimum of one year in jail and a maximum of life in prison.

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.