It was sexual assault. Period.
But where it gets tough for me is in weighing Peyton's intent. Which is really important to me in terms of how I judge Peyton's action. It doesn't mitigate the fact that he assaulted her, but it does help me decide what degree of scumbag he is.
It comes down to wondering what was his intent.
"Lolo this will be hilarious"
vs.
"I'm gonna teach this ***** a lesson with my ****"
From reading it seems like he had issues with her before he rubbed his ass hole on her face, which makes it very tough to see his intent being the former.
Now, everything that it appears he did after the fact? At best he was a kid who did something stupid and criminal and then his dad stepped in to do whatever he could to prevent his son from ruining his shot at getting drafted high and didn't give a **** about the impact to the woman in question. I actually wouldn't be surprised if, other than the actual sexual assault, most of the awful **** that went down afterwards was Archie's doing.
But Peyton doesn't get to get a pass for sexually assaulting a woman and then being either a passive or active participant in ruining her career, violating a confidentiality agreement and getting treated different than someone who can't throw a football who sexually assaulted a woman.
Had he manned up, apologized and tried to make amends I would feel differently, but this is probably one of the first times I've agreed with this board about Manning. I'm actually something of a fan of his on the field because I'll miss him as a really worthy adversary for our team.
But he's scum if what the plaintiff in this case says is true.
And I'm tired of people dismissing it as simply a prank. If some punk ****ing kid with a former NFL start daddy rubbed his ass hole on my wife's face I'd be seeing red.
