University of Illinois guard Terrence Shannon Jr. was arrested on Dec. 28 and charged with rape after an alleged incident in September 2023. On June 13, the star player was found not guilty of felony rape and aggravated sexual assault by a jury in Kansas.
According to The Washington Post, a jury took less than two hours to return
a verdict of not guilty for Shannon, who always maintained his innocence when he was accused by a woman of inappropriately touching her at a bar in Lawrence, Kansas.The verdict couldn’t have come at a better time for the NBA prospect, who has entered himself in the NBA Draft, which will take place on June 26 (first round) and June 27 (second round).
The accusation
stemmed from an alleged incident in Lawrence when Shannon was in town watching The University of Illinois football team play against the University of Kansas on Sept. 8. A woman accused the basketball player of grabbing her arm to pull her closer to him at the bar where he was viewing the game. She claimed he reached under her skirt to assault her. During the trial, he stated that he did not perform the act she accused him of, and until the preliminary hearing last month, he never saw her before.“As we stated in September ’23, we emphatically denied these charges and waited for our day in court,” Mark P. Sutter, Shannon’s attorney, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “That time has come, the jury has spoken, and justice was served. The public at large owes Terrence Shannon Jr. an apology.”
Shannon, who participated in the NBA Draft Combine last month, led his team to a 29-9 record, where they lost to the eventual champions, the University of Connecticut, after making it to the Elite Eight.