EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Three former Michigan State University football players accused in the 2017 sexual assault of a woman in an apartment bathroom have pleaded guilty to reduced charges.
From left. former Michigan State football players, Demetric Vance, Donnie Corley, and Josh King, appear in Ingham County Circuit Court’s Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom Wednesday, April 4, 2018, with their attorneys Mary Chartier, John Shea, and Shannon Smith in East Lansing, Migh. The three former football players accused in the 2017 sexual assault of a woman in an apartment bathroom have pleaded guilty to reduced charges. (Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP)
Josh King, Donnie Corley Jr. and Demetric Vance pleaded guilty Wednesday to seducing an unmarried woman.
Act 328 of 1931 in the Michigan Penal Code says “any man who shall seduce and debauch any unmarried woman shall be guilty of a felony.”
The charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. Longer sentences could have been imposed under the original criminal sexual conduct charges the men had faced.
Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon says in a statement that the “plea to seduction … allows the criminal justice system to acknowledge the victim” and “provides an incentive for that offender to plea, in particular because it’s not an offense that requires that they register as a sex offender.”
Sentencing is scheduled for June 6.
King, Corley and Vance were kicked off the team when charges were filed last year.
© Copyright 2018 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
