A suspended University of Southern California football player pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he sexually assaulted a friend who passed out after a summertime party in his home state of Utah.
A judge ordered Osa Masina, 19, to stand trial after the woman testified that alcohol and marijuana left her nearly unable to move when she woke up on a basement couch in the middle of the attack. The woman said she'd known him since high school in suburban Salt Lake City before the attack that left her scared, helpless and injured.
Masina's lawyer Greg Skordas has said any sexual activity was consensual and his client's perspective on what happened is different than the woman's. Defense attorneys could appeal the decision to send the case to trial, though that decision hasn't been made yet.
Masina and his teammate Don Hill were also investigated after the woman said she was sexually assaulted two weeks earlier when she visited Masina in California, court documents say.
She said the pair assaulted her at Hill's off-campus apartment after giving her marijuana, alcohol and the anti-anxiety prescription drug Xanax. Masina took video and sent it to the victim's ex-boyfriend, authorities said.
The woman said she remembered parts of what happened in California but was in denial about it before she reported the Utah assault. No charges have been filed in California.
Masina is appealing a decision to suspend him from USC. Hill also was suspended.
