Delco prosecutors have dropped all assault charges against a former Villanova football player

A former Villanova University football player has been cleared of indecent assault charges in two cases brought against him by female students at the school, officials said Monday.

Iyanu Elijah Solomon, 22, had been accused by two women of touching them inappropriately and propositioning them for sex in separate incidents in 2019 and 2020, according to court filings. One of the women said that Solomon, a former linebacker for the Wildcats, performed a sex act on her against her will while they were watching a movie in his dorm room.

On Monday, Delaware County Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher filed a motion to withdraw the charges in both cases before County Court Judge Kevin Kelly. Gallaher did not provide a reason for the withdrawal in her filing, and a spokesperson for District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer declined to comment.

In March, a jury acquitted Solomon of attempted rape, attempted sexual assault, unlawful restraint, and related crimes for an incident that allegedly occurred in his dorm room shortly after the 2019-2020 school year began.

A woman testified that Solomon had invited her to his dorm room alone, pinned her to his bed and attempted to undress her, all while demanding sex from her.

Solomon and his attorney, Daniel Bush, told jurors that the woman was an unreliable witness and her story was not true. Bush previously said that Solomon was kicked off Villanova’s campus after his arrest in that case, and lost his football scholarship, ruining his life in the process.

Bush said Solomon returned to Maryland, where he grew up outside of Baltimore, after he left Villanova.

In a statement Monday, Bush said that while he was happy for his client, the withdrawal of his remaining cases “doesn’t right the wrong of why these charges were filed in the first place.”

“They were filed only so that everyone would believe ‘where there’s smoke, there must be fire,’ without regard to the truth or illegality,” Bush said. “There is no fire here, because nothing criminal occurred, as is evidenced by the jury’s not guilty verdict and the district attorney office’s dropping the other charges.”

The two women whose cases were withdrawn Monday came forward to report their incidents after news of Solomon’s arrest was publicized in 2021.

The first one told police Solomon propositioned her in August 2020 while repeatedly touching her, despite her pleas for him to stop, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

The student, a friend of Solomon’s roommate at Villanova, was in the dorm room the two men shared after letting her friend borrow her car, the affidavit said. As she waited for her friend to return, she said she was watching TV on a couch with Solomon, who asked her if she wanted to perform a sex act on him. The girl told detectives she refused multiple times, but Solomon was persistent, and began touching her thigh.

She told investigators she left the room shortly after, and tried to avoid Solomon while on campus.

The woman in the third case told Villanova University police in 2021 that in September 2019, Solomon, then a sophomore, invited her to his dorm room, where he forcefully held her and penetrated her with his fingers, according to the affidavit of probable cause in that case.

The woman was a freshman at the time and told police she met Solomon through Snapchat. When she arrived at his Stanford Hall dorm to watch a movie, there were three other people in the room. She first sat on the floor, then Solomon invited her to sit next to him on the bed, the affidavit says. He placed a blanket on top of them to obscure the view from the others in the room, then started to touch her thighs and rub her.

Solomon forcefully touched the woman throughout her body “in a way that caused her to wince in pain,” the affidavit alleges. The woman told police that as a first-semester student, “she felt trapped and was afraid to say anything or make a scene in the room” out of fear that it could have a negative effect on her and her college experience.