Phone records: UT coach spoke to police on day players accused of rape

Released phone records show Tennessee coach Butch Jones called the Knoxville police chief multiple times in addition to former LB A.J. Johnson on the day that Johnson and former CB Michael Williams were accused of rape.

Per the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Jones talked to the police chief, David Rausch, four times on Nov. 16, 2014. The two players were accused of rape around 3 a.m. following allegations of an early morning incident.

Throughout the day, records show repeated calls between Jones and Sam Brown, the KPD liaison to the UT football team, as well as calls between the coach and Johnson, Rausch, UT Athletic Director Dave Hart, fellow player Curt Maggitt and various members of the football coaching staff. The records show no calls between the coach and Williams, the second player accused of rape.

Johnson and Williams have pled not guilty to the rape charges they're currently facing. In a federal lawsuit filed against the school, former WR Drae Bowles said in an affidavit that Jones called him a "traitor" for helping the woman making the allegations. The records show that Jones called Bowles twice that day.

In his affidavit, Bowles said he cried after first speaking to Jones and the coach later called back to apologize. Jones issued a statement Wednesday afternoon about the phone records and said the school has as many conversations as possible with multiple parties "until we can be sure that we are making the best decision possible. These are decisions that can be life-changing for these individuals. After taking into account all the information we could gather in this case, we made the decision to suspend two student athletes from the team immediately."

Per the Tennessean, Jones spoke to members of the police department before the apartment where the incident allegedly took place occurred.

In a statement Wednesday evening, Rausch said it's the department's "long standing practice" to notify the head coach of an investigated athlete as a "professional courtesy."

"At no time is any information shared with the university that would hinder or jeopardize any investigation," Rausch said. "The purpose of the notification is due to the scrutiny these events bring to allow appropriate time to prepare responses to the various interests. Our paramount concern at KPD is to the victims and their families and to assure them that we will utilize every resource available to conduct a thorough and comprehensive investigation.

Jones has previously denied the allegations Bowles made in his affidavit. The federal lawsuit, filed by six women in February, alleges that the Tennessee “has created a student culture that enables sexual assaults by student-athletes, especially football players, and then uses an unusual, legalistic adjudication process that is biased against victims who step forward.”

At a news conference in late February, Hart said he trusted Jones "implicitly."