Kaufman County sheriff’s investigators have seized a phone with a video on it showing a Forney High School soccer player being held down and sexually assaulted with a marker through his soccer shorts, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Sheriff’s investigators took the phone last Wednesday from the law office of an attorney representing one of the five players accused of sexual assault.
Authorities seized the phone a day before they searched the offices of school officials and the locker of one of the soccer players.
According to the affidavit, the attorney told police he had been given a phone by his client’s father. He was told that the phone contained “three to four videos of the same video depicting a Forney High School player being sexually assaulted,” the affidavit says.
The suspect’s father told the attorney that it had been recorded while playing on another person’s phone.
The attorney told police that he had not viewed due to the “alleged content” of the video.
Last Thursday, investigators also searched the offices of head boys soccer coach Kris Duplissey, athletic coordinator Kevin Rush, assistant principal Tim Cook, and principal Steve Whiffen. They were seeking information involving investigations of “reports of misconduct” involving the soccer team.
They also searched the locker of one of the players. They had been told that player had used a marker in the sexual assault depicted in the video. Police did not find the video during the search, according to the warrant return.
In a six-page search warrant affidavit WFAA obtained last week, investigators revealed that the head coach of the Forney High School boys soccer team knew about allegations of sexual assault involving players before they were reported to the authorities. The affidavit stated that an allegation of sexual assault had been reported to Duplissey via an email from a parent weeks before authorities were notified.
The sheriff’s department was not notified of the allegations until Jan. 17 when the district’s human resources director contacted a school resource officer.
By law, school officials are required to report allegations of sexual assault to law enforcement within 48 hours. Not doing so can be a criminal act.
The affidavit also indicates that sheriff’s office investigators believe high school administrators may have interfered with their investigation by “unilaterally” continuing to investigate during the criminal investigation, according to the affidavit. In particular, the warrant states that Whiffen, the principal, talked to an alleged victim after the sheriff’s office began investigating.
Late last month, five members of the soccer team were arrested on charges of sexual assault. Four of the players are minors and a fifth is 18-year-old Jacob Fisher. The four minors had been held by a Kaufman County judge, pending home evaluations, safety plans, and a psychological evaluation. They have since been released.
Fisher has also been released on bond from the Kaufman County jail. Investigators initially identified two victims, but have since identified additional victims.
