The Dallas County District Attorney's office has dismissed its case against John David Mahaffey, the SMU student arrested in September and accused of forcing another male student to perform oral sex.
Prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case on March 14. The one-page request says, simply: "Upon review of all facts associated with this case by Assistant District Attorney Cresta Garland, it has been determined there is no probable cause to support an element of the offense." It was granted by the court the same day.
Mahaffey was one of two SMU students indicted by the Dallas County DA on charges of sexual assault this year. The other, Donald Samuel Cuba, is accused of raping a fellow student in a dorm room. Cuba's case is still open.
Mahaffey, a fourth-generation SMU student and prestigious Hunt Scholar, was arrested on Tuesday, September 25; SMU's Daily Campus broke the news. According to a crime alert issued by the school, a male student had reported being sexually assaulted twice the day before, once at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house in the 3000 block of SMU Boulevard and again in a parking garage at Daniel Road and Airline Drive.
The student told police that Mahaffey had forced him to perform oral sex at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house. There was little information on the second alleged assault.
The next day, with the student's permission, SMU police recorded a phone conversation between him and Mahaffey. In it, according to the arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News, the student told Mahaffey, "You know I did not want to do that."
"I know you didn't," Mahaffey is said to have replied. "But we have to say it was consensual or lawyers, parents, and the school will be involved."
We have calls in to Mahaffey's lawyer, Reed Prospere, as well as the DA's office, and will update if we hear back.
4:30 p.m.: Debbie Denmon, Director of Communications for the DA's office, sends over this statement:
New information came to light after the indictment and it lead our prosecutor, ADA Cresta Garland, to dismiss the case. Garland didn't believe a prosecution was viable, because we didn't have the evidence to show that what happened was not consensual - based on this new evidence. ADA Cresta Garland does not want to talk.
