5 current, former UK football players sue members of Lexington Police Department
LEXINGTON, Ky. Sept 22 2022 Five current and former University of Kentucky football players are suing three members of the Lexington Police Department.
Reuben Adams, JuTahn McClain, Andru Phillips, DeVito Tisdale and Joel Williams were facing burglary charges in connection with a March 2021 fight at a frat party.
Those charges were later dropped by a Fayette County grand jury. If indicted, each player could have faced 10 years in prison. However, the players say it doesn’t matter that the case didn’t move forward, the damage was already done.
“For each of these players they very easily could have been wrongfully convicted,” attorney Elliott Slosar said.
Current UK players Tisdale, McClain, and Phillips, along with former wildcats Adams and Williams, filed the suit with Chicago based law firm Loevy & Loevy.
They say the allegations against them not only damaged their football careers, but also their reputations, and any earnings they could have made from NIL deals.
“If they didn’t have access to counsel, if they didn’t have families that supported them, they could have been a part of the system and went to prison for more than a decade of their life,” Slosar said.
The lawsuits claim Detective Cory Vinlove made false charges on the players without probable cause.
They say they were verbally and physically assaulted by people at the party, but those people were not charged, and allege officer Vinlove was out to make a name for himself.
“Certainly that is something that we believe is vindictive and has ulterior motives that this litigation will tend to show were not consistent with what a regularly trained police officer would have done at the time,” Slosar said.
In a statement, Adams’ parents say they are seeking justice, accountability, and an apology for what their son, and these players went through.
“Now when anyone Googles their name, one of the first things that pops up is the false criminal charges that defendant Vinlove and his colleagues initiated,” Slosar said.
There was a sixth player involved in this incident named Earnest Sanders. He has since transferred to Saginaw Valley State, and is not part of the lawsuit.
We reached out to both the Lexington mayor’s office and the police department for comment on the lawsuit. Both said they do not comment on open lawsuits.
They did confirm Detective Vinlove is an employee of the Lexington Police Department.
WKYT
