I think we'd all be completely fine with that. Fingers crossed that it's sooner...like January 18th
TSJ Thread
- Status
Oh yeah, I'm actually happy with how DIA and the university have conducted itself so far... for once.
It sounds like their hands were pretty tied. I'm sure there's some egg on their face about how much they promoted TJ only to have this come out. By the way, I think this circulated online but I was at the FDU game and his image was wiped from everything that I could see. Pregame videos, highlights, etc. You would hardly know he went here. Pretty fast work and a sign they'd be ready if it was necessary to dismiss him from the program.
Things that could be explained by a desperate DA?
You may have peak some interested 'round these parts? Care to elaborate on what's wrong and maybe even hypothesize to what can possibly be occuring?
AyoDos11
- Southern Illinois
The only games I could see a Shannon-less team lose to in January are @ Purdue, vs MSU, and @ OSU. Our talent level is still well above most teams in this league. NW is carried by one guy, Maryland and Rutgers are bad, Michigan loses to bad teams plus Juwan is coaching, and Indiana has holes throughout their roster. We could easily go 7-2, or even 8-1, in January putting us in an excellent position when/if Shannon comes back.
I think we lose to Michigan St at home. They are on a heater and per Izzo fashion he seems to be getting everything finely tuned as the season goes on.
The only games I could see a Shannon-less team lose to in January are @ Purdue, vs MSU, and @ OSU. Our talent level is still well above most teams in this league. NW is carried by one guy, Maryland and Rutgers are bad, Michigan loses to bad teams plus Juwan is coaching, and Indiana has holes throughout their roster. We could easily go 7-2, or even 8-1, in January putting us in an excellent position when/if Shannon comes back.
I misread your post, disregard
illinifan31
Former Krush Cow
- South Bend, IN
Kendrick Nunn was also dismissed in less than 24 hours after he pleaded to lesser charges.
Beginning to end in 3 minutes and reported 28 seconds in?
Doesn't pass the smell test
I know Josh said TJ still has access to Illinois facilities and benefits in some capacity. Do we know if he's still maintaining a consistent workout routine right now? A few weeks without that can be really impactful, especially with someone as routine-driven as TJ.
IlliniKat91
- Chicago, IL
From what he said during the press conference, it sounds like he has access to facilities and staff, but can't participate with the team in team activities. I wouldn't be surprised at all if as soon as this happened he reached out to the people he trained with over the summer and asked for a routine so he could go in when the team isn't there and stay in shape
I would agree with you, I have been quiet about the matter due to the fact I have not seen a probable cause affidavit or any case report about the circumstances or instances of which this took place. I am a criminal investigator and work in Indiana, but a majority of my case work involves sex crimes. I would totally agree with your viewpoint as there seems to be a lack of good valid information. I feel like I can’t make a determination because haven’t seen any facts.
Yeah, something tells me the guy that gets his workouts in at 4:45am (that we've all heard so much about) isn't going to suddenly stop those routines. In fact, if TJ is who we think he is, my guess is that working out has been his crutch to lean on through this ordeal. He still has access to staff, which I assume includes all of the training staff. Team just had to be mindful of drawing a clear line between TJ doing workouts with staff in training facility vs. TJ doing workouts with/around the team in that same facility.
Yeah if Shannon pleads down to a misdemeanor he is still gone. The case pretty much needs to be dropped or dismissed.
He still has access to the staff and last time I checked Fletch is all still on staff.
A few things:
- I am a long time lurker of this board, never made an account because I preferred to read the discussions, not engage in them. This is my first post.
- I am NOT an insider
- I do NOT claim to know exactly what happened in this case, only sharing information that was just shared with me
- I am NOT claiming this to be factual information, rather sharing information I just received.
- I did NOT solicit this information from this individual, they reached out to me with no previous contact.
I run an Illinois fan account on Twitter, it's relatively small (~1k followers) and I primarily use it to keep up with the Illini. Over the last couple of days, I've tweeted a lot about my *personal* opinion on this case. In doing so, I've attracted a lot of traffic to this account.
That's the context, here's the information.
I just had a former University of Illinois athlete direct message me asking me to use my Twitter platform to share the following. This person was not wanting to share from their account, and asked me to leave their name out of it. This individual is currently friends with numerous players on both the basketball and football teams and shared that everyone is shocked and extremely emotional stating that this could have been any of them. Below is what he wanted me to share:
- Terrence Shannon is innocent, deserves the benefit of the doubt
- The bar the incident occurred at is The Hawk (nickname for Jayhawk Cafe), made mention that if you look it up now, it says 'temporarily closed'.
- TSJ never left the bar with the accuser
- TSJ did not previously know the accuser, met them on the trip to KS
- TSJ's camp (players included) do not think the trial will survive due to lack of evidence (it's a he said/she said situation).
- Only surveillance footage of the two (TSJ and the accuser) is of them talking.
Again, just sharing information I received from a former U of I athlete who is currently a lot closer to the situation than any of us are to the situation. This person is still on campus and friends with current players from both big revenue sports.
Please delete if this is not allowed.
- I am a long time lurker of this board, never made an account because I preferred to read the discussions, not engage in them. This is my first post.
- I am NOT an insider
- I do NOT claim to know exactly what happened in this case, only sharing information that was just shared with me
- I am NOT claiming this to be factual information, rather sharing information I just received.
- I did NOT solicit this information from this individual, they reached out to me with no previous contact.
I run an Illinois fan account on Twitter, it's relatively small (~1k followers) and I primarily use it to keep up with the Illini. Over the last couple of days, I've tweeted a lot about my *personal* opinion on this case. In doing so, I've attracted a lot of traffic to this account.
That's the context, here's the information.
I just had a former University of Illinois athlete direct message me asking me to use my Twitter platform to share the following. This person was not wanting to share from their account, and asked me to leave their name out of it. This individual is currently friends with numerous players on both the basketball and football teams and shared that everyone is shocked and extremely emotional stating that this could have been any of them. Below is what he wanted me to share:
- Terrence Shannon is innocent, deserves the benefit of the doubt
- The bar the incident occurred at is The Hawk (nickname for Jayhawk Cafe), made mention that if you look it up now, it says 'temporarily closed'.
- TSJ never left the bar with the accuser
- TSJ did not previously know the accuser, met them on the trip to KS
- TSJ's camp (players included) do not think the trial will survive due to lack of evidence (it's a he said/she said situation).
- Only surveillance footage of the two (TSJ and the accuser) is of them talking.
Again, just sharing information I received from a former U of I athlete who is currently a lot closer to the situation than any of us are to the situation. This person is still on campus and friends with current players from both big revenue sports.
Please delete if this is not allowed.
First off, the way the charges are pled does not make sense. They have pled a lesser included offense as part of the original charges. I am not saying that never happens but is far from routine. Remember the Nunn case. There was a plea bargain and he pled to a lesser offense. You did not hear that before. It was part of a plea bargain where you put the lesser charge on the table. Or if you actually submit a case to trial, the prosecutor and/or the defense may ask for jury instructions on lesser included offenses. A chance at half a loaf for both the prosecutor and the defendant. But that is at the conclusion of the trial where the evidence brought out a trial may support the lesser charge. But come out of the gate with a lesser charge? You are basically saying your primary case is flawed before anything has happened. So now you plead a misdemeanor in the original charges and it is a good cya, although no good, ethical prosecutor would do that. If your evidence is not good enough, do not bring the original charge, was what I was taught by some awful good and awful straight mentors. So why not charge him just with a misdemeanor right out of the box? Misdemeanors do not bring headlines.
The problem I see is it is obvious they want him to plead to a lower misdemeanor charge. Sexual battery? Even as a misdemeanor, he is done, just like Nunn. They are not going to simply drop the charges now, Maybe a year from now when everything has quieted down and no one is talking and Shannon's lawyer tells them we are never pleading, if you want to get embarrassed, go ahead. Case gets dropped without any fanfare and the prosecutor who never should have brought a felony charge in the first place hopes it stays nice and quiet.
Which leaves the the option that the criminal charges remain pending, they will, but Shannon is reinstated. If you are the University, you better buckle up. You are reinstating an accused felonious deviate, or something like that. The University will get drawn and quartered, no matter what the truth is. It might be the right thing, I hope the administration has it in them.
Remember, except for this board and maybe Illini fans, this is already in the rear view mirror. Oh Shannon, the accused rapist. They do not know some of the real facts that have come out. So I would think this case is ripe for a preliminary hearing. At least you force them to lay most of their cards out in front of a judge. Most judges are thoughtful, deliberate and smart. You sometimes get some political hacks but that is more the exception. The judge will know when his nostrils are getting insulted and it will bring some of the true facts out in the open. You can ask for a preliminary hearing in Kansas unless you have been indicted by a grand jury. if they sneak in with a prosecutor controlled grand jury, as some have noted, it is nothing more than a rubber stamp, and use that as a way to keep preliminary hearing facts under wrap, that would be something worthy of Chicago corruption at its finest, but you never know.
The problem I see is it is obvious they want him to plead to a lower misdemeanor charge. Sexual battery? Even as a misdemeanor, he is done, just like Nunn. They are not going to simply drop the charges now, Maybe a year from now when everything has quieted down and no one is talking and Shannon's lawyer tells them we are never pleading, if you want to get embarrassed, go ahead. Case gets dropped without any fanfare and the prosecutor who never should have brought a felony charge in the first place hopes it stays nice and quiet.
Which leaves the the option that the criminal charges remain pending, they will, but Shannon is reinstated. If you are the University, you better buckle up. You are reinstating an accused felonious deviate, or something like that. The University will get drawn and quartered, no matter what the truth is. It might be the right thing, I hope the administration has it in them.
Remember, except for this board and maybe Illini fans, this is already in the rear view mirror. Oh Shannon, the accused rapist. They do not know some of the real facts that have come out. So I would think this case is ripe for a preliminary hearing. At least you force them to lay most of their cards out in front of a judge. Most judges are thoughtful, deliberate and smart. You sometimes get some political hacks but that is more the exception. The judge will know when his nostrils are getting insulted and it will bring some of the true facts out in the open. You can ask for a preliminary hearing in Kansas unless you have been indicted by a grand jury. if they sneak in with a prosecutor controlled grand jury, as some have noted, it is nothing more than a rubber stamp, and use that as a way to keep preliminary hearing facts under wrap, that would be something worthy of Chicago corruption at its finest, but you never know.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
That’s the nice thing about a situation like this vs an injury. With an injury, especially lower body injury, you aren’t getting shots up, aren’t conditioning, etc. So it can take a few weeks after the injury heals to get back up to speed.
I’m sure he’s training as hard now as he’s ever been, so if he is able to return, he’ll be able to plug right back in.
Thanks for the reassuring updates! Meanwhile waiting for a brohosaphat post to seal the deal.
not that it means much, but I know from being there that Shannon was indeed at the Hawk, great bar, if you ever go tell them Mike sent ya.
See four possibilities of this ending early: (1) prosecutor, whether under political pressure or by herSelf, decides to reconsider the charges (doubt she would reconsider the lesser charge), (2) the witness recants out of the goodness of her heart (or someone delivers a bag), (3) a plea is negotiated to some minor assault charge, or (4) the judge decides the evidence offered at the preliminary hearing would not be sufficient to support a conviction (this would be unlikely, but maybe possible, if lack of consent is based upon Shannon representing he is a football player and the judge concludes that such a representation is not sufficient as a matter of law to invalidate consent). Or maybe some combination of the above.
It is doubtful if any pretrial diversion programs would apply or could be used in Kansas. There are programs in some states where a first time offender for some offenses can avoid a criminal record by meeting certain conditions, i.e. alcohol/drug treatment. These are only available for non-violent misdemeanor offenses typically. They also generally require a guilty plea.
As I said immediately after JWs press conference, as TSJs lawyer, assuming I couldn't get an outright dismissal, I would find out what the panel would be OK with and pursue a plea to a minor charge that I could present to the court at the 1/18 hearing - some minor charge for which the panel would be satisfied with the suspension already served or maybe another game or two. As someone suggested above, indecent exposure is about the only crime that is not considered a violent misdemeanor or felony that could be charged on these facts. I thought maybe there was a minor assault charge that could be used, but, in Alaska at least, vanilla assault charges of any degree require "physical injury" or fear of it. But I also discovered that in Alaska a lack of consent by misrepresentation requires the offender to impersonate a person known to the complaining party - the "I thought he was a football player" would not be enough to support a finding of a lack of consent.
If the rumors about what happened are true, these charges are over the top. But as someone once told me, there are four versions of the truth - (1) what you think happened, (2) what the other guy thinks happened, (3) what really happened, and (4) what the judge or jury thinks happened, and only the last one matters. Unfortunately, this is wrong in this case - for TSJ's basketball career, the only version that really matters is what the prosecutor thinks happened because she controls the narrative until resolution of the charges.
It is doubtful if any pretrial diversion programs would apply or could be used in Kansas. There are programs in some states where a first time offender for some offenses can avoid a criminal record by meeting certain conditions, i.e. alcohol/drug treatment. These are only available for non-violent misdemeanor offenses typically. They also generally require a guilty plea.
As I said immediately after JWs press conference, as TSJs lawyer, assuming I couldn't get an outright dismissal, I would find out what the panel would be OK with and pursue a plea to a minor charge that I could present to the court at the 1/18 hearing - some minor charge for which the panel would be satisfied with the suspension already served or maybe another game or two. As someone suggested above, indecent exposure is about the only crime that is not considered a violent misdemeanor or felony that could be charged on these facts. I thought maybe there was a minor assault charge that could be used, but, in Alaska at least, vanilla assault charges of any degree require "physical injury" or fear of it. But I also discovered that in Alaska a lack of consent by misrepresentation requires the offender to impersonate a person known to the complaining party - the "I thought he was a football player" would not be enough to support a finding of a lack of consent.
If the rumors about what happened are true, these charges are over the top. But as someone once told me, there are four versions of the truth - (1) what you think happened, (2) what the other guy thinks happened, (3) what really happened, and (4) what the judge or jury thinks happened, and only the last one matters. Unfortunately, this is wrong in this case - for TSJ's basketball career, the only version that really matters is what the prosecutor thinks happened because she controls the narrative until resolution of the charges.
uiba99
I'd rather be at Allerton
It's been so long since I've posted on here that my profile picture is now 13 going on 14 LOL. I'm currently a labor attorney but previously served as a state and federal prosecutor. I can tell you that one of the biggest training issues the PD and prosecutors always had was when we had to explain to newer (or even older) police officers about how to fill out a report properly. A lot of the boxes on that form are likely part of a macro or a checklist and I used to see so many typos or mistakes or handwritten (for the love of GD type your reports man none of us want to decipher your chicken scratches) errors that I'd often have to read the whole thing multiple times, ask follow ups, and make inferences based on what was there (or what was not).
For the most part I wouldn't have put much weight on any of the marked or unmarked boxes, but I was never one to handle a lot of higher profile cases. I will say that my complaints and draft memos and motions were always meticulously written and rarely had typos or grammatical errors themselves. LOL.
With that said, my input (in addition to what has already been said) is minimal. There is a reason I am no longer a prosecutor. Fortunately, my former colleagues are all people I respect, and their integrity is intact. I have been lucky. My biggest fear was always that someday I would discover that someone I firmly believed was guilty was, in fact, innocent. There are factors at play in our system that are so much bigger than institutional racism and economic inequality and access to resources. I was so devastated a few days ago but now I have taken all that has been said with a grain of salt.
This is an example of why it is so, so very important to have people with ethics and morals in positions of power. And to have people on grand juries who can cut through the fat, so to speak. Don't shirk your jury duties, folks, especially at the federal level. Be skeptical. But be rational.
My former office in Milwaukee had a policy that we would never charge a case unless we could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt at the time of charging. Obviously that's not the legal standard. But it was our moral one. And we would catch flak for it. I do not know what happened here. I do not want to make assumptions based on my fandom or based on my status as a woman who knows that sexual violence is a consistent threat whether we are super feminine or super gender neutral or whether we are wearing too many clothes or nothing at all.
I hope this situation plays out fairly. I fear that it did not start that way.
Had not been aware of that, but good to hear there is a disaster mitigation strategy in place within the department that extends to media and game-day experience. That speaks to Josh's ability to competently oversee every aspect of Illini Sports (not that everything is optimal; but he seems aware, in the very least).Oh yeah, I'm actually happy with how DIA and the university have conducted itself so far... for once.
By the way, I think this circulated online but I was at the FDU game and his image was wiped from everything that I could see. Pregame videos, highlights, etc. You would hardly know he went here. Pretty fast work and a sign they'd be ready if it was necessary to dismiss him from the program.
I get a strong sense that Josh has a low tolerance for unenlightened staff - the type that would comprise a DIA at many institutions currently and especially in the first few decades of big tv money. Given that, I'm choosing to believe a couple things: (1) Any DIA would thoroughly investigate a matter when this much ($$$) is at stake; (2) Josh's DIA will act in a manner, based on its findings, that doesn't ignore long-term monetary downside, nor, most importantly, societal/humanitarian implications. This was always the primary seed of hope to which I've clung since last week.
Future Walk-On
- Peoria, IL
The about me section for this Douglas County DA says it all. In bold, first paragraph.
The Douglas County DA was the target of a license suspension hearing last month. I think the hearing ended on December 20. Does anyone have any clue on when a ruling might enter, and if a suspension ruling would mean she was suspended then and there?
My hope, unsupported by any real facts, is that she is suspended, an Acting DA is appointed, and that person takes a fresh look at the TSJ charges.
My hope, unsupported by any real facts, is that she is suspended, an Acting DA is appointed, and that person takes a fresh look at the TSJ charges.
- Status