A prosecution mistake caused a mistrial on the first day of testimony in a case against a former Bethel University football player accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in 2018.

Gideon Osamwonyi Erhabor, now 26, of McKinney, Texas, went before a jury Monday on one count of felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with an alleged assault of a then-18-year-old woman on Sept. 11, 2018.

It was one of three sexual assault cases Ramsey County prosecutors filed against Erhabor on Dec. 3, 2019. Two other then-Bethel women also reported to law enforcement on separate days in June 2019 that Erhabor had assaulted them in the fall and winter of 2018.

Gideon Osamwonyi Erhabor (Courtesy of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office)

Deputies with the Ramsey County sheriff’s office interviewed Erhabor about the incidents in his hometown of McKinney, Texas, in September 2019. While he acknowledged having sex with the three women, he said all the interactions were consensual, according to the criminal complaints.

A jury in October 2022 found Erhabor not guilty of third-degree criminal sexual conduct relating to one incident. The other case, alleging an assault in October 2018, remains pending in court under the same charge.

The prosecution’s mistake Monday involved an audio recording that referenced the other two cases. In 2020, Judge David Brown denied the prosecution’s motion to introduce evidence from the two cases, known in court as Spreigl evidence, during a trial for the case that began Monday.

Despite the similarities in the three cases, Brown wrote in his decision, there are what he called “significant differences.” He noted how the other two cases allegedly happened off-campus. He wrote the women described being “suddenly and significantly intoxicated whereas in this case the victim was not intoxicated.” Erhabor was also alleged to have “exploited the victims’ intoxication to facilitate the sexual penetration” in the two cases and is accused of using force in the other case, the judge wrote.

“Although of some relevance to the State’s case, the Spreigl evidence is not so closely related so as to overcome the substantial risk that the offenses may be used improperly by the jury,” he concluded. “The probative value therefore does not outweigh the potential for unfair prejudice in this case.”

Erhabor was a student at the Arden Hills’ Christian college from the fall of 2017 to fall 2018. He was a running back on the football team in 2018.

He was arrested in his Texas hometown a day after the charges were filed and released from the Ramsey County Jail after posting a $30,000 bond nearly a month later.

‘Told him no’

The alleged victim, who is now 23, testified Monday.

She said she met Erhabor at an off-campus house party after kissing him on a dare from her friends, adding that “it was out of character for me.” They then exchanged Snapchat profiles.

After going back and forth on the social media app for a couple of days, Erhabor asked if she wanted to watch a movie with him in his dorm. She agreed, and said she told him she didn’t want to have sex.

“What were you expecting?” prosecutor Andrew Johnson asked.

“Probably cuddle, watch a move and make out a little bit,” she said.

Erhabor picked her up and put on “Black Panther” in his dorm room. Eventually, they began kissing while lying down on a futon. She said Erhabor removed her pants, then grabbed her hips. After he grabbed a condom, “I said no, and started scooting away,” she testified in court.

“So you told him, no?” Johnson asked.

“Told him no,” she said.

She said her head was in a pillow during the assault, and that she cried during it.

In cross-examination, defense attorney Daniel Gonnerman asked her if she kissed Erhabor in his car before he dropped her off. “After he had asked, yes,” she said.

Gonnerman asked her if she was unhappy that her friend’s roommate reported the incident to college officials about a month later. “Wildly,” she said. “I was furious.”

Earlier, during questioning by Johnson, she said she didn’t give Erhabor’s name to the college’s Title IV director because “everyone knows everyone’s business” and “I didn’t want to be that girl.”

She reported the incident to the Ramsey County sheriff’s office nine months afterward. She said Monday “it felt like it was off my chest … it felt good to do something. I felt like it was the first choice I made in this case.”

Unredacted audio

Later, Johnson gave jurors a redacted transcript of the woman’s interview with a sheriff’s office investigator. He then played an audio recording of the interview, which included the investigator saying she “was the third woman.”

Johnson looked up at the defense attorney and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

The recording kept playing, with the investigator making a reference to “another woman.” Johnson stopped it.

Judge Joy Bartscher asked for jurors be taken out of the courtroom.

Johnson apologized that the references to the other women were not redacted from the audio.

“I take full responsibility,” he said. “Frankly, if the defense wants a mistrial …”

Gonnerman interjected: “I don’t have a choice, your honor. It can’t be fixed.”

Bartscher agreed.

“The problem is, I agree we can’t undo it,” she said. “I don’t know how much the jury heard of it, because it’s not in the transcript. But we will never know.”

Bartscher then granted Gonnerman’s motion for a mistrial and set a motion hearing for Feb. 23. The Ramsey County attorney’s office will ask for a new trial at the hearing, spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said Tuesday.

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