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UPDATE: Michael Dixon accused of, never charged with, sexual assault

Michael Dixon

Michael Dixon is a potential all-american candidate for Missouri, but he has yet to suit up for the Tigers as he has been suspended by head coach Frank Haith since late October. When the suspension was originally announced, Haith made it seem like it was an academic issue, saying that it wasn’t a legal problem but “more about the everyday choices we make and the cumulative impact it has.” He followed that up by saying, “Mike has had some time off to work on some academic stuff, and he has done a nice job, he’s made some strides in that area.”

Seems pretty clear cut, right?

Well, rumors started flying during the Tigers’ trip to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis that there was more to the story than a simple academic issue, enough so that Haith felt the need to open his press conference after a 68-65 win over VCU with this: “Before we get going here, I want to reiterate one thing — that Mike Dixon has been suspended for a violation of team rules, OK? I know there’s a lot of rumors and allegations going on out there. It’s something I’m not going to address.”

Those rumors stemmed for a series of tweets that were fired off by someone claiming to be a victim of a sexual assault by Dixon. She has since deleted her account, but you can find the tweets here. They were in response to these tweets from Kim English, which have also since been deleted.

The big news today is that we now have confirmation that Dixon was, in fact, accused of sexual assault. Terez Paylor of the KC Star is reporting that Dixon was accused of forcible rape on August 20th but was never charged due to a lack of evidence. Columbia police investigated, but the case was closed on November 16th. This would lend credence to the theory that Dixon is currently suspended as his case goes in front of the school’s student judicial board, as English insinuated in his tweets.

(UPDATE: There are quite a few very, very graphic details of the encounter here, courtesy of Steve Waletnik of the Columbia Tribune.)

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.