Former Dallas Cowboys player C.J. Spillman, 30, was found guilty by a jury on Thursday, June 30, 2016 of sexual assault.
On September 20, 2014, Spillman invited a woman he assumed to be a “groupie” to stay with him at the Gaylord Texas Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. The victim who was represented by Gloria Allred, a prominent California attorney, claimed she was sexually assaulted between 6 and 7 a.m. He signed to the Cowboys on September 1, 2014.
Allred represented two different women who reported assaults by Spillman to the police in two separate instances, one in California and and the other in Texas. The former case was the first investigation for National Football League’s new senior adviser Lisa Friel. Friel is a former Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor and she was hired by the NFL because they were under fire for mishandling issues of sexual assault and domestic violence.
In 2015, a grand jury in Tarrant County, Texas indicted Spillman of raping the Chicago woman who flew to Texas to visit Spillman. In his own defense, Spillman alleges his accuser, 27, acted like a “sports groupie,” who travels across the country to have sex and get pregnant with athletes or musicians “to generate income.” He also claimed their sex was consensual and she provoked the encounter after climbing into bed and kissing him. She counters alleging the sex was forced and she was humiliated in the process.
Spillman had a live-in girlfriend, the mother of his three children, who was threatening to leave him and return to Kentucky. He was also pursuing a third woman. The victim from Chicago wanted to end her anticipated weeklong trip early because she discovered that Spillman was under a temporary restraining order sought by his former live-in girlfriend for pulling a gun on her.
His punishment ranged from a minimum of two years to a maximum of 20 years in prison. He has been sentenced to five years.
