The parents of former LSU tennis star Jade Lewis said Sunday that they are dismayed by how LSU administrators have responded to reports that Lewis was repeatedly abused by a football player and that higher-ups failed to properly investigate it.
Lewis, a highly touted tennis prospect from New Zealand, enrolled at LSU and started playing for the tennis team during the 2017 season. But while Lewis was completing “one of the most prolific freshman seasons in program history,” as she was described on the LSU tennis roster, she has said she was also facing increasingly violent physical abuse from LSU wide receiver Drake Davis.
Hundreds of LSU students marched through campus Friday afternoon, demanding that the university clean house and stop protecting students — esp…
Police reports show that Davis texted executive deputy director of athletics Verge Ausberry on April 14, 2018, and admitted that he hit Lewis in the stomach. Ausberry said in a Nov. 18 interview with The Advocate that he called Davis after receiving the text message, and that Davis recanted his confession. However, Ausberry acknowledged that he made no further attempt to report Davis to police, the university's Title IX office or anyone else.
“My wife and I are astonished and dismayed with Executive Deputy Athletic Director Mr. Verge Ausberry recently saying he feels comfortable how he handled things and his career is still intact,” said David Lewis in a joint statement with his wife, Rosaria.
“After receiving notification of the assault on April 14, 2018 that the abuser had assaulted our daughter, Mr. Ausberry was required by law to report to Title IX the abuse,” Lewis added. “He failed to do this.”
Last week started with Samantha Brennan’s image being published in newspapers across the country as she spoke out for the first time, saying L…
The Lewis family is well-known in New Zealand for their tennis stardom. David Lewis is a former professional tennis player.
Ausberry told The Advocate in his interview that, if he could do it all over, knowing what he knows now, he would have called the police after Davis texted him. Yet he also said that he was “very comfortable in my decision” and that he was not worried about losing his job over his failure to report Davis’ abuse.
Multiple Title IX experts told The Advocate that Ausberry’s failure to report appeared to break the federal law that protects students from discrimination based on their sex, which includes sexual violence. The experts said that said Davis posed a danger to other students on campus as well.
When an LSU football player admitted to hitting his girlfriend in a text he sent to executive deputy director of athletics Verge Ausberry, bot…
After USA Today published an investigation Nov. 16 that revealed extensive failures at LSU to respond to reports of sexual assaults and violence, LSU commissioned law firm Husch Blackwell to probe its past handling and policies around such incidents. But in the meantime, LSU officials have done little to respond to specific complaints about administrators named in the story who were accused of failing to properly respond to reports of domestic violence, sexual assault and other types of abuse.
Ausberry, for example, remains a member of the committee searching for LSU’s next president. Asked whether Ausberry should continue to serve on that committee in light of the accusations, chairman James Williams said, “absolutely.”
Tennis coaches Mike and Julia Sell are also facing mounting accusations that they failed to respond after multiple tennis players and parents reported sexual assaults and violence from LSU football players.
Former LSU tennis player Jade Lewis is accusing LSU women's tennis coach Julia Sell of looking the other way while multiple people reported in…
“Our daughter has released her own public statement of the failure of the tennis coaches, Michael and Julia Sell, to report these assaults required by law to Title IX,” David and Rosaria Lewis said in their statement.
The Sells denied those allegations in a recent statement posted on Julia Sell’s Twitter account. However, Sell cut off public access to her account shortly afterward, and that statement is no longer visible.
As a new report shines light on LSU's failures to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct and Title IX violations, The Advocate | Times-P…
Jade Lewis said the denial from the Sells is a “blatant lie” and accused them of betraying her after her teammates reported that Davis was abusing her. David Lewis also said he reported concerns about Davis abusing his daughter twice to Mike Sell in 2017, and said that Mike Sell brushed them off.
Davis pleaded guilty to two counts of battery on a dating partner and one count of violation of a protective order in the Lewis case. He was arrested again in 2019 on domestic violence counts against another woman.
