Yet Another Man's Life Ruined

[Matt Walsh]

These days we are told that there is no such thing as objective truth. Every
person gets their own truth, based on their perceptions of their own “lived
experience,” and each individualized truth is just as valid as every other
individualized truth. According to this view of the world, and of reality,
there is really no such thing as a lie. To lie is to intentionally
misrepresent the truth, but you cannot misrepresent something that doesn't
actually exist. But this relentless campaign to obliterate objective truth is
always doomed to failure. Those who deny it or falsify it are not asserting
their own truth but simply telling a lie. And lies have consequences,
sometimes severe and appalling consequences — and consequences that, all too
often, are felt by everyone but the liars themselves.

That brings us to the story of Matt Araiza. Early last year, everything was
looking up for the NFL prospect from San Diego State. He was a punter — not a
position that usually attracts much attention, but Araiza was a special case.
While still playing in college, his punting prowess had earned him the
perhaps vaguely sacrilegious nickname “Punt God.” Finishing his final college
season averaging 51 yards per punt, Araiza had broken an NCAA record. After
getting drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the sixth round and booting an 82-
yard punt in a pre-season game, all signs indicated that he would live up to
his nickname in the NFL and have a long and illustrious professional career.
Everything was set up for Matt Araiza. Nothing could get in his way — except
a lie, and a media eager to amplify it.

In August of 2022, shortly after being officially named the starting punter
for the Bills, a civil lawsuit was filed claiming that he, along with two of
his teammates, viciously and brutally gang raped an underage 17 year old girl
at an off campus party a year before. There was, so far as the public or the
media knew, no evidence that the rape occurred. No proof other than the word
of the accuser. But that's all that the media needed, of course. Immediately,
the frantic headlines were published labeling Araiza a rapist and an abuser,
and relaying the alleged facts of the case, which were graphic and harrowing.
In a story oddly reminiscent of the Kavanaugh allegations, the alleged victim
claimed that she was led, drunk and half-conscious, to a back bedroom in the
home where she was abused by three men over the course of an hour and a half,
leaving her bloody and crying. It didn't take long for the Bills to cave to
the public pressure and release Araiza. A decision strongly criticized by the
media, including ESPN, at the time — not because it was based on extremely
questionable allegations, but because it wasn't made quick enough.

A couple of months after Araiza lost his job in the NFL, the prosecutors
announced that they would not be pressing charges in the case. But no
additional information was released until this week. Ten months later — ten
months for the narrative to set itself in stone — and now the truth comes
out. As it turns out, evidence shows that Matt Araiza was not even present at
the party when the alleged rape occurred. Not only that, but the evidence
strongly suggests that no rape occurred at all. Here's Yahoo News:

“A fuller picture of what police and prosecutors found, however, is now
available via a 200-plus page transcript of a 100-minute meeting obtained by
Yahoo Sports where a deputy district attorney offered a detailed explanation
to the girl and her attorneys. Perhaps most notably, the district attorney's
office concluded Araiza couldn't have led the girl into the alleged gang rape
because he had 'left' the home at about 12:30 a.m., an hour prior to when
evidence suggested the alleged gang rape would have occurred. 'He wasn't even
at the party anymore,' deputy district attorney Trisha Amador explained to
the girl. Later Amador stated of the timeline of events, 'All I know is that
at that point, suspect Araiza is gone from the party.’”

Prosecutors and police interviewed 35 witnesses, including friends of the
accuser. They also reviewed video of the sexual encounter that the accuser
claims was a rape. Araiza isn't present in the videos, and there is no
indication in the footage that the sex was anything but consensual. According
to the physical evidence and witness testimony compiled by investigators,
this was not a story of an underage girl being taken to a room against her
will and brutalized. Instead, the picture painted by those who investigated
the case goes something like this: The girl, who was 17 at the time, went to
a college party a few blocks from her house. She accessed the party through a
back gate. Multiple witnesses testify that she told people at the party that
she was 18. Investigators found video footage from a party the night before
where this same girl says on camera that she's 18. Yahoo News reports again:

“The civil lawsuit alleged that soon after the girl's arrival at the party,
she was separated from her friends and Araiza led her 'over to the side yard
of the house where he told her to perform' sex against her consent. Araiza,
however, has always maintained that he never led her into a private area of
the backyard, that she walked back there while he was urinating. Witness
testimony, again including the girl's friends, played a role in prosecutors
declining to press charges. 'The witnesses say … that shortly after you
arrived at the party, you left and came back shortly thereafter,' the DA
Trisha Amador said. 'And you told [a friend],”'I just had sex.” ... You
didn't appear unhappy. You appeared to be having fun and that the encounter
on the side of the house with Matt, suspect Araiza, was consensual.' Amador
also explained to the girl that additional witness testimony alleged that at
this period of time, 'you were approaching men at the party saying, “I want
you to [expletive] me and if you don't [expletive] me you're a [expletive].”
While the civil lawsuit claimed that right after the Araiza encounter in the
side yard the football player led her into the bedroom in the house, the
timeline established by authorities was much different. Prosecutors said that
'shortly after' being with Araiza, witnesses said the girl again left her
group and came back to report she had had sex with a different man. Again,
prosecutors explained, witnesses suggested it was consensual. 'You had
returned and then came back and said you had sex with a guy, this would have
been the second person that would have been in the progression of the
evening,' Amador said. 'Again, you're described as being OK, not scared or
distraught. Seemed happy, seemed consensual. Again, you're not intoxicated at
this point that anybody would know your intoxication level to the point that
they would not be able to tell that you weren't able to give consent,' Amador
said.”

All in all, the evidence seems to strongly indicate that this girl went to
this party, lied about her age, solicited sex with multiple men, bragged
about her sexual conquests, had consensual sex repeatedly over the course of
several hours — and then at some point shortly after this sex marathon
decided that she had been raped.

Matt Araiza was expected to play for the Mexican football league, with hopes
of making his way back to the NFL. But that's unlikely to happen. Even after
being vindicated in this way, his name and reputation have been permanently
stained. Meanwhile, the accuser still wants to bring the lawsuit to trial,
hoping for a friendly jury that will be persuaded more by her tears than by
the facts of the case. And she just might get exactly that.

As always, false accusers are playing with house money. Either their plan
works and they get paid, or it doesn't and they suffer no consequences at
all. This is the way the system is set up, but it doesn't have to be this
way. It seems incredibly obvious to me that false accusers — those who are
proven to be false accusers — should face the same penalty that we give to
rapists. To falsely accuse someone of rape is just as bad as being a rapist.
There is no moral distinction between the two. After all, if this girl had
her way, Araiza would not only be fired from his job and have his reputation
permanently ruined — a terrible fate on its own — but he would also be in
prison. Locked behind bars as a rapist, and suffering all of the consequences
that come with being a rapist in prison. False accusations are a form of
attempted murder. You are trying to take a man's life away. And if you cannot
take his life, you will take everything he values in his life. His job, his
livelihood, his friendships, his reputation, his name. Casually destroying
someone's entire life because you are embarrassed of your own actions is
psychotically evil, and like so much other evil in our society, it goes
unpunished.

Because we are not a society that values truth, we do not appreciate the real
cost of a lie. We are also beholden to the Left's victimhood hierarchy. Matt
Araiza, as a white male football player, simply did not have enough victim
points — or any at all — to have his story taken seriously. These are the
factors that create the perfect storm that has destroyed the lives of many
men. It's not fair, it's not just, but it's an unfairness and injustice that
young men should be always aware of. The best way to protect yourself from it
— not foolproof, but nearly so — is to stay away from hook-up culture
completely. You certainly don't deserve to be labeled a rapist because you
consensually hooked up with some random girl who regretted it the next day.
But that might be what happens. There are a lot of reasons to reject hook up
culture. This is far from the only reason. But it is reason enough on its
own.