Former Villanova football player found not guilty of attempted rape

A former Villanova football player was acquitted late Thursday of attempting to rape a former classmate in his dorm room at Villanova University in 2019.

Jurors delivered their verdict in the case against former Villanova Wildcats linebacker Iyanu Elijah Solomon just after 11 p.m. at the end of a three-day trial before Delaware County Court Judge Kevin Kelly.

Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallagher said Solomon pinned the woman down on his bed, attempted to undress her, refused to let her go, and demanded sex.

Gallagher urged jurors in her closing argument Thursday evening to convict Solomon, 22, saying the assault had traumatized the woman. The Inquirer is not identifying the woman because it does not name victims in sexual assault cases without their consent.

“Rape is about power, control,” Gallagher told the jury. “But this trial is about the truth. The truth is he is guilty of all these charges. The defendant had the power that night, but today, you do.”

But Solomon’s attorney, Daniel Bush, said the evidence did not support the woman’s account. He said texts and Snapchat messages recovered from Solomon’s phone showed that she had continued to spend time with Solomon after the alleged assault, sharing Uber rides with him to a party and inviting him to her dorm room days later.

Their relationship ended, Bush said, when the two got into an argument over a disagreement with friends.

“A rape allegation is not a sword you pull out of your pants and swing around every time you get mad,” Bush said in his closing argument. “That’s what she did.”

Gallagher sharply opposed that theory.

“It is unreasonable that she would do all of this because they had some petty argument about freshman drama at the beginning of their freshman year,” she said. “That is nothing compared to the life-altering experience that is criminal prosecution.”

In an interview Friday, Bush said he and his client were pleased with the verdict, and said Solomon is looking forward to rebuilding his life. Solomon, the son of Nigerian immigrants who live outside of Baltimore, lost his football scholarship and was kicked off Villanova’s campus after his arrest in 2021.

“This case shows that mere accusations do not mean that someone actually committed a crime, but accusations alone can destroy a person’s world. Law enforcement needs to be more diligent on who they actually charge,” Bush said. “Elijah has maintained his innocence from day one, and fought hard to prove it.”

After the woman brought her charges forward in 2021, Solomon was charged in two other alleged assaults of Villanova students. Those cases are being handled separately, and a status hearing on how to proceed with them has been scheduled for late April.

The woman at the center of this week’s trial, now 22, testified that she was terrified as Solomon held her down and groped her during the alleged assault.

Solomon only released her, she said, when she offered to perform oral sex on him. She said she used that pretext as an opportunity to escape, but Solomon grabbed her again and prevented her from leaving.

Desperate, she said, she started to recite the Lord’s Prayer. At that point, Solomon let her go.

Solomon, for his part, testified that the woman sat in his lap and seemed to indicate to him she wanted to have sex. He stopped, he said, when he saw she was uncomfortable. He vehemently denied preventing her from leaving the room, and said he walked her to the building’s front door.

The woman’s friends testified that she had told them about the alleged assault in the days that followed. Meanwhile, the woman and Solomon continued to spend time with each other. After an Uber ride to a party in Philadelphia, Solomon said, the woman became upset with him, accusing him of turning her friends against her after an argument.

The woman later texted him an ultimatum, saying “time is up,” according to copies of the exchange displayed in court.

The next day, the woman told her resident assistant about the alleged rape but asked her not to report it. The RA did so anyway, but the woman declined to press charges.

Two years later, the woman told police Solomon was harassing and following her, according to prosecutors. But campus police could not substantiate that, Bush said.

He said the woman had spread rumors on campus that Solomon was a “registered sex offender.” He showed the jury a text message in which Solomon asked her to stop. The next day, Bush said, the woman filed rape charges.