Utah State University fired a coach and a deputy athletic director after accusing them of improperly investigating and reporting a football player’s domestic violence case.
But the northern Utah school did not conduct its own investigation into the student-athlete’s conduct, allowing him to remain a student and graduate a year later, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week.
Fired deputy athletic director Jerry Bovee also alleges in his new suit that the school allowed the former football player to graduate with fewer credits than are required.
Bovee was fired by the university in July 2024 for allegedly violating Title IX reporting requirements in April 2023. Bovee has disputed the allegations in two lawsuits against USU, saying a colleague properly filed a report on his behalf within hours of being told about the incident and denying he knew about coach Blake Anderson’s subsequent investigation, which included meeting with witnesses and collecting written statements.
After being arrested in April 2023, the football player announced plans to transfer to play at a different university. Months later, however, he posted on social media that he would not be playing for the school. Instead, according to Bovee’s lawsuit, the player remained a student at Utah State.
“No investigation into the Student Athlete incident was ever done by USU’s Office of Equity,” the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges. “Ironically, if [Bovee and others] had not filed the [incident report] … no one at USU would have ever known of the allegations against the Student Athlete, and Mr. Bovee would likely still have his job today.”
A Utah State spokesperson said, “In this instance, like in all others, Utah State followed its standard processes, which include: carefully evaluating cases for safety and risk, gathering information to identify potential parties (which can take time in a case when names are not provided in a report), providing information to the individuals affected about their options, and, when possible, respecting their choices on how they want to move forward (formal investigation, informal resolution, supportive measures, etc.).”
USU confirmed the former player has since graduated from the university. He was listed in the Utah State’s May 2024 commencement program.
The student was arrested multiple times while playing for USU, records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune show. While USU’s student-athlete handbook required him to report any arrest to the school — and said athletes could be removed from their team and lose their scholarship for failing to do so — records do not indicate that USU knew about two of the incidents. The Office of Equity said it learned of a third report to police only after the student entered the transfer portal, and both Bovee and Anderson have said the player only acknowledged his April 2023 domestic violence arrest after a USU athletics staff member had already told the coach about it a week after it happened.
A university spokesperson said USU is currently working to ensure area law enforcement agencies share reports of alleged criminal behavior involving student-athletes. This is a long-known gap; a 2016 investigation by general counsel Mica McKinney into USU’s flawed handling of claims against football player Torrey Green found that poor communication with law enforcement led to the school failing to learn about reported assaults involving its students.
A university spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of Bovee’s latest allegations but told The Salt Lake Tribune that USU “looks forward to correcting the record through the litigation process.”
(Eli Lucero | Herald Journal) Former USU deputy athletic director Jerry Bovee, right, listens as then-basketball coach Danny Sprinkle speaks at a news conference in Logan, Utah. Bovee has filed two lawsuits against the university after being fired in July 2024.
Utah State’s investigation
According to a North Park Police Department report, a witness had seen the football player on top of a woman — later identified as his significant other — who was lying on the ground in one of the hallways of their apartment complex on April 5, 2023.
The athlete allegedly grabbed the victim by the neck of her sweatshirt. He then went inside and locked the door with their child inside and the woman outside. The officer who talked to the woman wrote in the report that she had bruises and small cuts around her neck.
The man, now 24, was charged in May with Class B misdemeanor counts of assault and domestic violence in front of a child. He entered a plea in abeyance and the case was dismissed in late January.
Bovee has said he reported the incident to university leaders on April 12, within 24 hours of Anderson telling him about the allegations.
In his lawsuit, Bovee alleges Utah State did not investigate the incident further.
In a statement to The Tribune this week, a USU spokesperson said they could not provide specific information about Title IX cases but said Utah State followed its “standard processes.”
McKinney asserted to the Department of Justice that the USU Office of Equity carried out an “appropriate response to the allegations of domestic violence” in the April 2023 incident. In a September 2024 letter to the DOJ, McKinney, who is also vice president of legal affairs, said USU’s response included “a prompt request for relevant university records and local law enforcement records.”
Bovee’s lawsuit alleges that USU did not question any witnesses. McKinney’s letter to the DOJ on Sept. 7, 2024 said there was no investigation because a formal complaint was not filed in the matter.
A USU spokesperson said a formal complaint must be filed by either an alleged victim or the university to begin an investigation.
USU can choose to pursue an investigation on its own when an alleged victim doesn’t want to participate and sign a complaint, its Office of Equity policies state. “The Title IX Coordinator will sign the formal complaint to initiate the university-driven formal investigation,” the office explains in an online guide.
The USU spokesperson said a number of factors are considered before beginning a university-driven investigation, including if there is a pattern of behavior, the amount of evidence that could be obtained without the alleged victim’s participation, the potential harm an investigation could cause the alleged victim, and the threat of harm to the USU community.
Past allegations
The April 2023 arrest was not the athlete’s only encounter with police in Cache Valley.
According to reports obtained by The Tribune through open records requests, the player had also been reported to police in northern Utah twice before for domestic violence, and once for trying to buy a gun as a restricted person (related to pleading guilty to a felony as a juvenile).
Those three incidents occurred between July 2021 and July 2022, while the player was a member of the Aggie football team; however, he was not charged in those cases.
(Steve Conner | AP) Former Utah State head coach Blake Anderson looks up a the videoboard late in second half of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl NCAA college football game against Georgia State, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, in Boise, Idaho.
One police report detailed “disturbing allegations of sexual misconduct,” according to McKinney’s 2024 letter to the DOJ, but “there was no indication that any USU employee ever received information about this matter.”
USU said it is currently working to ensure it receives reports of alleged criminal behavior involving student-athletes.
“USU has been actively working with local law enforcement to establish consistent information-sharing practices and strengthen inter-department relationships,” a USU spokesperson told The Tribune. “ As a result of these conversations, local law enforcement [has provided] USU students with a card regarding reporting and resource options on campus.”
In September, McKinney told the DOJ that the school was working on a formal memorandum of understanding with law enforcement agencies. “Discussions regarding a formal MOU are ongoing,” a USU spokesperson said this week.
A USU student-athlete is required to report to their head coach within eight hours of being arrested, cited for a crime, questioned by police or served with a subpoena, according to a student-athlete handbook from 2020. Failure to do so could result in the loss of their scholarship.
However, both Bovee and Anderson have said the football player only revealed his April 2023 domestic violence incident after being confronted about it.
And USU said that it appeared the student-athlete was unaware of a previous report involving sexual misconduct until the school’s Office of Equity discovered it in the wake of the April 2023 charges.
Other allegations
A year after his arrest, Bovee’s lawsuit claims, the student-athlete graduated “despite being short of the requisite number of credits.”
The university’s Student Athlete Academic Services, a division inside of the athletic department, assisted the athlete in graduating, a USU spokesperson confirmed this week.
“While we can’t provide specific information about the student, any requests for deviations would have occurred between April and August 2023,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“To the extent Mr. Bovee suggests anyone outside of the Athletics department provided favorable treatment to a student athlete knowing a student athlete had been arrested and ultimately charged for assault and domestic violence in front of a child, USU looks forward to correcting the record through the litigation process,” the statement continued. “Unfortunately, in the court of public opinion we are limited by privacy laws designed to protect students and employees.”
In addition to claims against USU, Bovee accuses university president Elizabeth Cantwell, who is set to become the next president at Washington State on April 1, athletic director Diana Sabau and McKinney of “scapegoating and retaliating against him” as the school faced discipline from the Department of Justice for its troubled handling of sexual assault allegations.
He alleges they interfered with his economic relationship with USU and “sabotaged” his potential economic relationships with other employers, “misrepresenting the facts surrounding his termination, and smearing his reputation.”
Bovee asserts that Cantwell, Sabau and McKinney harmed him for their own personal reasons, arguing that means his claims against them should not be blocked by the governmental legal immunity that often protects officials against lawsuits.
In a separate state lawsuit, Bovee is asking for $300,000 in damages and a jury trial claiming USU fired him because he reported multiple policy violations. Anderson, now serving his second stint as the offensive coordinator at the University of Southern Mississippi, has sued the university for $15 million citing a wrongful termination.
