Prosecutor Joe Deters of Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas has said that no charges shall be filed against former Xavier basketball player Dezmine Wells. Wells, who committed yesterday to play for the University of Maryland, faced criminal charges of sexual assault after having been expelled from Xavier University on Aug. 21 for a “serious violation of the Student Code of Conduct”. After assigning senior assistant prosecutors to the case to review the evidence and present their findings to the grand jury, Deters confirmed that the Grand Jury had declined to charge Wells with sexual assault. Deters urged Xavier University officials to re-consider their decision to expel Wells. “The Grand Jury declined to charge Wells with any criminal offense…” Deters said, “… I would sincerely hope the institution would revisit this situation.”
The ordeal prompted Deters to criticise the way in which Xavier University’s hearings, particularly those of sexual assault, involve no lawyers; “there’s just something wrong with that,” Deters said. Xavier University defended its stance on the case by affirming their compliance with Title IX. “Federal Law (Title IX) and Federal Regulations and Guidances prohibit Universities from ceding student conduct matters to the criminal justice system. The Federal Law requires schools to act quickly and all schools, by law, must use the ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard, whereas the criminal justice system uses the ‘probable cause’ standard to indict, and the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard to convict,” A University statement read. Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas has not issued any publicly available documents from the case. The Wells case has been a popular talking point among
the students of Xavier University and the tag “freedez” was scattered across the social media website Twitter in disagreement to his expulsion from the university.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025