TMZ Report: Gareon Conley suing woman who accused him of rape

Gareon Conley was at the top of the world last year a few weeks before the 2017 NFL Draft. He was getting ready to be a high first round pick, he had endorsement offers coming in, and he was about to have his lifelong dream of entering the NFL fulfilled. Oh yeah, and millions of dollars being put into his bank account.

That all came to a crashing halt for him when ugly rape accusations put his future in jeopardy. The accusations that Conley raped a woman in a Cleveland hotel room went all the way to a grand jury in Cuyahoga County, Ohio but the grand jury chose not to indict Conley on the charges after a thorough investigation by Cleveland police.

The accusations cost him millions of dollars and now Gareon Conley is suing the woman who accused him, according to TMZ. The grand jury decision didn’t happen until after the draft and the accusations caused any endorsement deals to be pulled and Conley fell to the Raiders at number 24. He could have fallen even further had the Raiders not made the risky decision to draft him in the first round despite the accusations.

His Ohio State teammate Marshon Lattimore ended up being drafted number 11 to the New Orleans Saints, a pick that easily could have been Gareon Conley if the accusations had never been made. The salary difference between Lattimore’s 11th pick (deal worth $15.36M) and Conley’s 24th pick (deal worth $10.467) is a whopping $4.89M, and that doesn’t even include lost endorsement money.

In a court filing Conley states that the accusations caused his drop in the draft and cost him multiple endorsement deals including one with Nike. He also states that the accusations against him were entirely false and stemmed from the woman being embarrassed after Conley turned down her sexual advances.

He is stating that the woman is now liable for “malicious criminal prosecution” for the millions that he lost due to her accusations and for the damage done to his reputation. The Raiders cornerback has reportedly looked great this off-season after seemingly moving on from this dark scandal and his lost rookie year, but it looks like he has one more thing he wants to do before moving on fully.