The Falcons chose Prince Shembo, a linebacker from Notre Dame, in the fourth round of the NFL draft. That much is fact. What isn’t known — what might never be known — is whether the Falcons drafted a player who, as was alleged, sexually assaulted a 19-year-old Saint Mary’s College freshman named Lizzy Seeberg in his dorm room Aug. 31, 2010. What is known is that Lizzy Seeberg killed herself 10 days later by taking an overdose of the antidepressant Effexor.
Shembo does not deny that he was investigated for the sexual battery of Seeberg, who accused him of touching her breasts. He revealed that in February at the NFL scouting combine. Neither he nor Notre Dame conceded as much over the intervening 3 1/2 years.
Shembo never was charged by authorities, never suspended by the Fighting Irish. He played in the BCS title game a year before Florida State’s Jameis Winston, another player who was investigated on sex-related allegations but not charged, did.
“Pretty much it was an unfortunate event,” Shembo said Saturday, speaking with reporters via conference call. “My name was pretty much cleared. It’s behind me now. I just want to focus on playing football for the Atlanta Falcons.”
But here we ask: Should the Falcons have taken Shembo, whose involvement in a matter that became a national story was known long before he went public? Should they have implemented what folks here call the Falcon Filter and exercised Pick No. 139 on someone else? Or should they have taken Shembo at his word?
“I met with all the Falcons guys,” Shembo said Saturday. “I told them exactly what happened.”
Speaking at the combine, he said: “I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything … I’m the one who ended it and pretty much told the girl that we should stop, that we shouldn’t be doing this.”
Shembo also said that Notre Dame had advised him not to speak publicly about the matter. Coach Brian Kelly later told the Chicago Tribune, in cryptic fashion: “We felt it was in Prince’s best interest that this was not a matter that needed to be discussed. But that was certainly something he could have decided to discuss.”
It’s clear now that Notre Dame did Shembo a disservice, but the school seemed more eager to protect its institutional interests than one student-athlete’s. No shock there. It was reported that a friend of Shembo’s sent Seeberg a text message: “Don’t do anything you would regret. Messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.” (Which sounds like what Winston’s accuser said she was told by a Tallahassee detective regarding Florida State.)
It took Notre Dame police until Sept. 15 — five days after Seeberg’s death — to interview Shembo, who characterized their encounter as consensual. The school was heavily criticized by Seeberg’s family, and Irish alumna Melinda Hennenberger took Notre Dame to task in articles written for Politics Daily, the National Catholic Reporter and the Washington Post. (She reported that Shembo was suspended by his high school for throwing a table at a teacher who took his cellphone.)
In a case involving the alleged sexual battery of a woman who subsequently took her life, discussions about football seem trivial. But only one living person knows exactly what happened in that dorm room on that night in 2010, and the Falcons just welcomed him to their family. We can debate the wisdom of this — or the lack thereof — at length, but we cannot say that the Falcons made such a decision with eyes wide shut.
“We’re very, very aware of the seriousness of the incident,” general manager Thomas Dimitroff said. Then this: “We used a lot of (investigative) resources at many levels. We’ve done our due diligence.”
Shembo was the 139th player taken, not the first or the third or the ninth. Had the Falcons found what they considered a character flaw, they could easily have taken someone else. “That’s correct,” Dimitroff said. “Categorically correct.”
And the drafting of Shembo isn’t an indication that, in the effort to get tougher and meaner, the Falcon Filter has been relaxed? “Not one bit,” Dimitroff said.
Reaction on Twitter wasn’t kind. Some used that forum to label the Falcons’ fourth-round pick a “rapist,” although that allegation was never made. As he enters the NFL, Shembo will have more eyes on him than the average fourth-rounder, as evidenced by the question posed Saturday: Does he have remorse over what happened 3 1/2 years ago?
“Of course,” Shembo said. “I have lot of remorse for the girl. Any time someone experiences death or dies, it’s always very sad.”
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