On March 5, 2010 Roethlisberger was investigated for his alleged sexual assault inside a women’s restroom of the Capital City Nightclub in Miledgeville, Georgia. The accuser, a then 20 year-old college student at Georgia College & State University, who had been hanging out with the quarterback for the majority of that evening. The young girl was taken to the hospital night after sustaining injuries to her face, head and neck. Roethlisberger, who spoke with police on the scene, stated that he did have contact with the girl that was not “consummated” but he did not physically harm her—the quarterback claimed that the accuser slipped and injured her head. When the accuser was treated for her injuries, an emergency-room doctor noted that a “superficial laceration and bruising and slight bleeding the genital area” was present—a rape kit was collected but no semen was recovered to create a profile or establish that a rape had taken place.
During interviews with the police on the night of the incident, the young girl alleged that the quarterback, after accepting an invite to join him in the V.I.P area of the club, encouraged her and her friends to drink an obscene amount of alcohol. When the girl became significantly inebriated, she claimed that the quarterback led her to the bathroom where he exposed himself. The girl claimed that Roethlisberger then had sex with her; at this time, the young girl’s friends reportedly tried to intervene, only to be thwarted by Roethlisberger’s bodyguards. On April 12, 2010, district attorney Fred Bright held a press conference to announce that the quarterback would not be charged in the incident due to a lack of evidence. Although Big ben avoided a trial and a subsequent prison sentence, a number of his sponsors terminated business deals and the league suspended the quarterback for the first four games of the 2010 season.