Jury Seated In Kidnapping, Rape Trial Of Former USU Football Player
Jan 4, 2019, 7:38 PM
BRIGHAM CITY, Utah – A jury has been selected and opening arguments scheduled in the case of a former Utah State University football player charged with kidnapping and rape.
Six women have accused Torrey Green of assaulting them between 2013 and 2015 while he was a football player at Utah State University in Logan.
A jury was seated early Friday evening. Opening arguments are scheduled for Monday, January 7.
Green faces five counts of rape, three counts of forcible sexual abuse, two counts of object rape, and one count of aggravated kidnapping. Rather than go through six separate trials, both the prosecution and defense agreed to consolidate all six cases into one trial.
“The defendant wanted to try those all at once and, as we considered it, we didn’t object given that many of these witnesses may have been testifying in each of those trials and this will bring closure to those victims sooner than later,” said Cache County District Attorney James Swink.
In December, the Deseret News reported that two members of O.J. Simpson’s defense team were helping Green’s defense team pro bono.
The trial was moved to Brigham City after the defense argued pre-trial publicity would make a fair trial difficult in Logan.
Court officials called a large juror pool in Brigham City Friday because the district attorney said it can be difficult to seat a jury in cases involving sex crimes.
“There’s a lot of sexual assaults that have occurred in our society. The numbers show one in four women have been assaulted in their lifetime. That’s a pretty big part of a jury pool,” Swink said.
Green was signed by the Atlanta Falcons after graduating from USU in 2016. The team dropped him after the accusations became public.
