By Scott Sonner, Associated Press Writer
RENO, Nev. (AP) - A woman has filed a lawsuit accusing Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of raping her last summer in his penthouse room at a casino in Lake Tahoe during a celebrity golf tournament.
Roethlisberger’s lawyer adamantly denied the allegations Tuesday.
“Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone. The timing of the lawsuit and the absence of a criminal complaint and a criminal investigation are the most compelling evidence of the absence of any criminal conduct. If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated,” David Cornwell said in a statement.
The claim seeks at least $390,000 in damages from the quarterback, who has won two Super Bowls and is one of the biggest names in sports. The lawsuit also alleges hotel officials for Harrah’s Lake Tahoe went to great lengths to cover up the incident.
Teresa Duffy, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office in Douglas County, which includes part of Lake Tahoe, said no complaints were filed about such an incident either with sheriff’s deputies or the district attorney’s office.
The woman’s lawsuit says she didn’t file a criminal complaint because she feared she would be fired and expected Harrah’s would side with Roethlisberger.
The woman said she had been promoted from VIP shift manager and was working as an executive casino host when Roethlisberger struck up a friendly conversation at her desk during the golf tournament.
The next day, July 11, 2008, she said he telephoned her to tell her his television sound system wasn’t working and asked her to look at it.
She said she was unable to find a technician so she decided to handle it herself because she had been told how important it was to please celebrities.
In Roethlisberger’s room she said she determined the TV was functioning properly but as she turned to leave but the 6-foot-5, 240-pound quarterback stood in front of the door and blocked her, the suit claims.
The lawsuit said he then grabbed her and started to kiss her. It said she was “shocked and stunned that this previously friendly man, that appeared to be a gentleman in her previous contacts with him was suddenly preventing her from leaving, was assaulting her and battering her.”
She said she feared that because he was a football player he could or would physically harm her if she tried to fight him off but that she objected and protested several times.
“But instead of stopping, Roethlisberger began fondling plaintiff through her dress and between her legs,” the suit said. He then “held her against her will and physically moved plaintiff and pushed her onto his bed” where he raped her, the suit says.
She told him “You don’t want to do this,” and begged him “I am not on any type of birth control.”
Afterward, he asked if there was a security camera in the hallway. She said he then instructed her to claim she had repaired his television if anyone asked why she was in his room.
The lawsuit says the woman required hospitalization for treatment for depression after the alleged attack.
The woman’s lawyer, Calvin R. Dunlap, of Reno, declined to answer questions about the lack of a criminal complaint and why the civil action was brought a year after the incident allegedly took place.
“Neither I nor our client will be making any comment,” Dunlap said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “We believe the matter should be resolved in court rather than in the media.”
The lawsuit also names eight Harrah’s employees as defendants and alleges the cover-up involved the chief of security at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and was carried out with the knowledge of John Koster, president of Harrah’s northern Nevada operations.
John Packer, spokesman for the hotel-casino, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
The suit says Harrah’s security chief Guy Hyder gained the trust of her parents while she was hospitalized for depression and persuaded them to give him a key to her home. She said Hyder and others then entered her home and allegedly erased information from her computer and confiscated it.
The lawsuit claims that when the woman first reported the attack to Hyder he dismissed her distress and crying and said she was “overreacting.”
The woman said Hyder told her that “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger” and that “Koster would love you even more if he knew about this” because Koster was good friends with Roethlisberger and admired him greatly.
Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett said Tuesday the team is aware of the lawsuit, and “we are gathering information.”

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) _ Suspended NFL star Michael Vick’s federal dogfighting sentence has ended, freeing him to lobby for a return to the field.
Vick’s attorney Lawrence Woodward said Vick was released from federal custody Monday at his home in Virginia. Vick had been under home confinement for the last two months of his 23-month sentence.
The federal Bureau of Prisons had listed Vick’s release date as Monday.
Freedom will allow Vick to step up his efforts to resume his pro football career. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has said he will review Vick’s status after the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback completes his sentence.
If Vick is able to return to the NFL, it won’t be with Atlanta. The Falcons released Vick in June.

By Bill Vidonic, Times Staff

BEAVER - An Industry man was cleared Friday of all charges for bringing a gun to a presidential campaign rally last year.

John Noble, 51, smiled broadly after the jury pronounced him not guilty of a misdemeanor charge of disrupting a public gathering.

Beaver County Judge Harry Knafelc also found Noble not guilty of a summary charge of disorderly conduct, although Knafelc said Noble performed a “foolish” act by wearing the gun at the Aug. 29 Obama-Biden campaign rally in Beaver.

For further details, revist timesonline.com.

By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) - The first hint of trouble aboard the Carnival Elation came three days into the luxury cruise to Mexico, when a passenger contacted the ship’s security to express concerns that a woman might be dead.
Crew members went to Shirley McGill’s cabin on Tuesday evening and found her body, but her husband, Robert McGill, was not in the room, said Keith Slotter, a special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego bureau.
On Thursday, Robert McGill was taken into custody from the cruise ship more than six hours after it returned to port in San Diego. He will be charged in the murder of his wife, Slotter said.
Slotter wouldn’t say why the passenger who notified security was concerned, but said several hours may have passed between the death and the body’s discovery.
McGill, of Los Angeles, was later detained and held in the ship’s brig until the boat docked Thursday morning. The San Diego County medical examiner removed the woman’s body about three hours later, said John Gilmore, a spokesman for the Port of San Diego, and the FBI took McGill from the boat Thursday afternoon.
Slotter would not provide details about a possible motive or how Shirley McGill was killed.
“We have suspicions at this time of how it was conducted but until that autopsy is done I can’t comment … on exactly how it may have occurred,” Slotter said of the death.
Both the suspect and victim were in their mid-50s, Slotter said.
The ship is the length of more than two football fields and carries more than 2,000 passengers and 900 crew members, according to Carnival’s Web site. The ship traveled for five days, stopping in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
FBI agents leaving the ship carried plastic baggies and a plastic foam box labeled: “Urgent. Refrigerated evidence enclosed.”
McGill will likely make a first appearance in U.S. District Court in San Diego on Friday, although the time of that hearing was yet known, said Debra Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
It wasn’t immediately known if McGill had an attorney.

BEAVER — A Beaver County jury this afternoon cleared an Independence Township man on charges of attempted murder in the shooting of an Aliquippa man last October.
Duane Cope, 38, was found not guility of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.
Cope admitted that he shot Thomas Jeter Jr. along Franklin Avenue in Aliquippa, but Cope said it was in self defense.
Prosecutors said the shooting was the result of a gambling debt.
A second man charged in the incident, Frank P. Unis Jr., 55, of Harmony Township, was cleared of a criminal conspiracy charge on Wednesday.

Michael Pound, Times Staff

CENTER TWP. - A Center Township woman has been charged with third-degree homicide after Center police said she injected a man with a fatal mixture of heroin and cocaine in her home early Thursday.

Police said Mandy Lynn McGowan, 32, of 131 Gourley Lane, purchased the drugs and injected them into Bryan Borzyn, 31, whose address is unknown, shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday. Borzyn lost consciousness and was taken by medical personnel to Heritage Valley-Beaver hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:40 a.m.

Center police Chief Barry Kramer said McGowan discussed the incident with officers, and that the homicide charge was filed under the direction of Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh.

“She made statements consistent with the fact that she assisted with injecting the victim with the drugs,” Kramer said. “There are other factors that indicate a homicide charge, but that’s the primary reason.”

Besides the murder charge, McGowan is also charged with possession of controlled substances and possession of drug paraphernalia.

MONACA – PennDOT is advising motorists that Beaver Avenue will be closed at its intersection with Pennsylvania Avenue in Monaca on Tuesday.

The closure will start at 7 a.m. and continue through April. Access will be provided for local businesses and residents.

The closure is part of an $8.5 million project to replace the bridge that carries Route 51 over railroad tracks about a mile south of the Ohio River between Beaver Avenue and 21st St.

Sewickley Academy basketball star Tom Droney has made a verbal commitment to play at Davidson, said Panthers head coach Win Palmer.Droney, who will be a senior at Sewickley Academy this fall, had been getting overtures from several Division I schools. More details in Thursday’s Times.

BEAVER – A former Beaver woman will spend a year on probation for allowing her dog to die in a cage in December.

Nicole E. Spatig, 22, pleaded no contest to a single count of cruelty to animals this morning in Beaver County Court.

Beaver police who investigated the incident said at the time it was the worst case of animal abuse they had ever seen. Spatig’s German shepherd was found dead in a cage in her former apartment on Beaver Street.

Spatig refused to comment on the case after the hearing this morning.

BY Bill Vidonic, Times Staff

ALIQUIPPA - An Aliquippa man surrendered to police Thursday afternoon on a single count of criminal homicide, accused of shooting another city man to death earlier in the day.

Markez Priest, 20, of 322 Linmar Terrace, was being questioned by Aliquippa police for the death of Darius Odom, 21, also of Aliquippa.

Police said Priest shot Odom twice in the 300 block of Todd Street, in the city’s Plan 11 section. Odom was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he died during surgery just before 10 a.m.

For additional details, see Friday’s Times.

Bill Vidonic can be reached online at bvidonic@timesonline.com.