WACO, Texas (CN) – Baylor University’s attorneys cast doubt Tuesday on whether an alumnus actually told coaches about the beatings she says she received from running back Devin Chafin and about what she says was his abuse of prescription opioids, mushrooms and marijuana.
Dolores Lozano sued Baylor, former football coach Art Briles and former athletic director Ian McCaw in federal court. She claims negligence and sex discrimination under Title IX, that she was beaten three times by Chafin in 2014 during her senior year and that the school’s deliberate indifference to her reports caused additional beatings. Lozano’s story along with several other female student stories of rape and abuse surfaced in 2016, resulting in the Baylor board of regents ordering an independent investigation by the law firm of Pepper Hamilton that concluded administrators discouraged students from reporting abuse and retaliated against one student.
The fallout resulted in the demotion of Ken Starr as president — he later resigned as chancellor and as a law school professor. Briles was suspended with intent for termination in spite of winning two Big 12 Conference championships. McCaw was suspended and he later became athletic director at Liberty University after resigning.
Testifying Tuesday, Lozano told jurors that she had informed then-running backs coach Jeff Lebby of Chafin’s assaults and drug use, saying she saw him use marijuana, Oxycontin and mushrooms. She said the prescription opioid abuse was so bad it once required her to throw him into a bathtub to wake up.
Lebby is Briles’ son-in-law and is currently the offensive coordinator at the University of Oklahoma. He was forced to issue a public apology last month when Briles appeared on a sideline next to Lebby in OU clothing. Briles has remained a pariah in college football since his firing — coaching in high school and in Italy since leaving Baylor.
Baylor attorney Julie Springer, with Weisbart Springer in Austin, confronted Lozano on cross-examination on why she testified in a deposition in 2021 that she had only talked to Lebby about Chafin’s grades, yet was now claiming she told him about the assaults and drugs.
“That was what I could recall at that time,” Lozano replied.
“You only had one conversation with him and it was about academics,” Springer said.
Springer also pointed out that Lozano knew she could have contacted Baylor campus police and Judicial Affairs but did not, citing records of earlier disputes Lozano had as a student with a former roommate and an unidentified basketball player.
The attorney also asked Lozano why she did not go to Waco police after the first assault, if she didn’t want to get Chafin in trouble.
“Nobody from Baylor discouraged you from going to the police, right?” Springer asked.
“Yes,” Lozano replied.
With approximately 10 of Lozano’s friends and family members in the courtroom Tuesday, Lozano silently wept while telling jurors she has struggled with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder after the assaults and that she regularly speaks with a counselor.
Lozano testified she learned of her unplanned pregnancy with Chafin in February 2014 after they had broken up and that he was initially supportive of her decision to have an abortion. She said Chafin later argued with her before he first assaulted her at his apartment on March 6, pushing her over a toilet and then kicking her in the stomach as she laid inside a closet. Lozano said Chafin then began to strangle her and she briefly lost consciousness before she awoke to him crying and asking for forgiveness.
Her attorney, Zeke Fortenberry of Dallas, showed jurors several images Lozano took on her mobile phone of her bruises on her arms, neck and back in the days after the assault.
Lozano criticized Baylor’s response when she went to the Health Services clinic for help after she says Chavin assaulted her a second time in April 2014. She told jurors she was seated in a car at a Waco bar when he approached and slammed her arm against the car window.
Lozano said she told clinic staff about both assaults by Chafin and that she was referred to counselors who seemed to focus more on the abortion than the abuse.
“It was very uncomfortable,” Lozano said. “It was more focus on the abortion than on being beaten … I just left there feeling like I was going to go to hell.”
Lozano said she was staying away from Chafin but that he was expressing suicidal thoughts so she agreed to meet with him a third time in April, where he pushed her down in his apartment kitchen before getting up and leaving.
“I seriously hate you,” Lozano’s Facebook message to Chafin afterwards stated. “I hate you for making me feel like I am not good enough.”
She testified Chafin replied with “I have done nothing but apologize.”
Defense attorney Springer cast doubt on whether Lozano’s self-admitted heavy drinking after she turned 21 years old was really due to Chafin, entering into evidence a statement Lozano wrote when she was sentenced to community service for an open container violation.
Lozano was issued the ticket after being stopped by Waco police driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Lozano reportedly told officers her mother was a cop and her passenger, Chafin, was issued a citation for minor in possession of alcohol.
“I thought I was capable of driving home but I was not,” Lozano wrote at the time. “In all honesty, I started drinking a lot after 21 to deal with school and family stress.”
Springer told jurors during opening arguments Monday that Baylor does apologize and accepts responsibility for the “bad things” that happened at the school, but that “this is not one of those cases.” Baylor claims Lozano was repeatedly urged to go to the police and to take advantage of school resources.
Chafin has already testified during a deposition in this case and will not testify in person. The case is being presided over by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, who earlier denied a motion by Baylor to bring Chafin into the case as a third-party defendant. Chafin has steadfastly denied ever throwing Lozano to the ground, kicking or choking her.
Lozano ran for public office last year in Harris County and was elected as Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2, Place 2. A Democrat, Lozano’s first term runs to 2027.
from Courthouse News
