'He won't let me leave': Former Mizzou basketball recruiting target charged with rape
Ethan Erickson | Post-Dispatch
Keiner Asprilla
A top basketball player charged with rape and kidnapping while on an official recruiting visit to the University of Missouri last fall is scheduled to be in a preliminary hearing Thursday in Columbia, Missouri.
Keiner Asprilla, of New Jersey, was staying in a university-paid room at the The Tiger Hotel last September while on a recruiting visit. He is alleged to have held a woman against her will and repeatedly raped her, according to court documents, before the woman escaped wearing only a towel.
Asprilla, who was 17 at the time, is being tried as an adult and is being held without bond at the Boone County Jail. He faces three counts of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree sodomy and one count of second-degree kidnapping, all felonies.
Asprilla, who stands 7-foot-1, is a native of Colombia, in South America, and was playing high school basketball in New Jersey on a student visa.
He met the woman in public just after midnight on Sept. 22, when he invited her to his hotel room to hang out, according to an interview with Columbia police.
She described herself to police as “very drunk.”
After the victim told Asprilla she was not interested in having sex, Asprilla kicked a friend out of the room and removed the woman’s clothing.
“No, I don’t want to,” the victim said she told Asprilla before he forced himself on her, raping her twice in quick succession, according to court documents.
The victim texted a friend, who was later interviewed by police, from the bathroom.
“Answer please,” read a text message from the victim to a friend, who eventually picked her up. “I’m scared.”
“I can’t call.”
“I don’t know how I’m gonna get out.”
“He won’t let me leave.”
After the victim sent the text messages, Asprilla threw her phone across the room, held her down and raped her a third time, according to court documents.
Afterward, the victim grabbed a large, white bath towel, left her shoes and clothing in the room and ran to the hotel lobby.
“I just got raped. I left my clothes,” the victim said when she got to the hotel lobby, her friend told police. A front-desk employee gave the victim a shirt to wear.
Asprilla posted photos from his visit, wearing a Mizzou uniform on his Instagram account on Sept. 23. Some of the posts featured head coach Dennis Gates.
A top-50 player in the country, Asprilla reportedly had scholarship offers from many top-level schools, including Kansas and Auburn, according to 247Sports. That site indicated the Mizzou trip was the only official recruiting visit Asprilla took.
Earlier this month, a juvenile court judge ordered Asprilla to face the charges as an adult, according to reports.
