Police arrested a 22-year-old Gilroy man who formerly played for
the Cal football team Monday after he allegedly raped a young local
teen girl at his home the previous day.
Police arrested a 22-year-old Gilroy man who played for the Cal football team after he raped a local teen girl at his home the previous day, police said.
R. J. Xavier Garrett was booked into Santa Clara County Jail Monday on charges of committing sodomy with someone younger than 16, trying to prevent a victim or witness from reporting a crime, false imprisonment, and molesting a minor.
“This definitely was not consensual even in the loose sense of the word,” Gilroy Police Sgt. Wes Stanford said.
Garrett and the girl, who is in her early teens, initially met at a local fast food restaurant this past weekend, Stanford said. They both exchanged phone numbers and texted each other before the girl went to Garrett’s home on the 8600 block of Delta Drive between 3 and 4 p.m. Sunday, he said.
Garrett sexually assaulted the girl there, leaving the girl traumatized, Stanford said. Stanford would not give the victim’s exact age.
The girl reported the incident to police, who set up surveillance in the area of his home and arrested Garrett at 12:48 p.m. Monday at Santa Teresa Boulevard and Mantelli Drive while he was walking down the street.
The Compton native has a well known criminal history in Berkeley. Garrett, a former fullback for the University of California, Berkeley football team, was arrested in Sept. 30, 2008, after he and junior Gary Doxy used a BB gun to rob two Berkeley crew team members, according to a university press release and the university newspaper, The Daily Californian. Garrett and Doxy demanded a laptop and a wallet from the men, though they fled with only the laptop, according to the press release. Police said the robbery was in response to several racist comments that were made by another crew team member in September, according to the university. Garrett, a sophomore at the time of the incident, was dismissed from the football team shortly after the robbery.
Anyone who has information about prior sexual assault incidents regarding Garrett can contact Detective Jason Smith at 846-0300.
