http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/sports/ncaafootball/karlos-williams-florida-states-top-rusher-is-accused-of-domestic-abuse.html 2014-10-28 02:57:32 Karlos Williams, Florida State’s Top Rusher, Is Accused of Domestic Abuse Williams, a senior, is the third Seminoles starter to face an abuse claim in the past two years. === Florida State running back Karlos Williams is under investigation over an accusation of domestic battery, the Tallahassee Police Department The Tallahassee police received the case against the 21-year-old Williams on Saturday night. No other details of the claim were made public. Williams, a senior and the Seminoles’ leading rusher with 378 yards and seven touchdowns, is the third Seminoles starter to face an abuse claim in the past two years. The new accusation emerged as the defending champion No. 2 Seminoles try to extend their 23-game winning streak in a Thursday game against Louisville. The Florida State athletic department said in a statement Monday that it was “aware of an investigation by the Tallahassee Police Department involving football student-athlete Karlos Williams,” adding that his status with the team was “under review.” According to an Wilhelm referred a request for comment to her lawyer, Nathan Prince, who was not immediately available for comment. Earlier this month, The New York Times In December 2012, starting quarterback Jameis Winston, who last season became the youngest winner of the Heisman Trophy, was accused of rape. It took nearly a year for the case to reach the prosecutor’s office. Last December, the local prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to charge Winston. Earlier this season, Winston was suspended for a game after shouting lewd statements of a sexual nature in the student union. F.S.U. began a disciplinary inquiry into the 2012 accusation against Winston last month. Questions about Williams’s status with the team emerged Friday, when Rick Ballou, a Jacksonville radio sports talk host, posted online that Williams had violated “team rules.” Ballou later apologized after Florida State officials contacted him to say that Williams was not going to be suspended. Coach Jimbo Fisher responded to Ballou’s posting during his weekly news conference last Friday. “No, there’s another false report,” Fisher told reporters. “And it’s amazing how things happen out here. And whoever’s got sources and whoever’s got rumors need to check who they’re talking to. Cause that’s about as far from the truth as it is. Amazing, isn’t it?” Williams’s lawyer Tim Jansen, who has also represented Winston, said it was too soon to comment on the running back’s situation. “It’s so premature,” Jansen said Monday. The Tallahassee Police Department, which said the case was “immediately assigned” when it was received, has been criticized in the past for its handling of accusations against Seminole football players. It The director of that center, Meg Baldwin of Refuge House, said Monday that she met with the department last week to discuss the case, which she believed should have been referred to her under state law. That meeting was first reported by The Tallahassee Democrat. “It was to work on areas of collaboration between the Tallahassee Police Department and Refuge House, particularly on sexual battery, and also to review the issue related to this report,” she said, referring to the January case. Baldwin declined to comment on the Williams case. “One allegation is enough to, I think, start to do some strong intervention from the university, from the coaching staff, the football program, the athletics program,” said Nina Zollo, legal counsel to the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “If we can intervene with families early, that’s when you can hopefully make a difference,” she added. Williams, who from Davenport, Fla., has a brother, Vince, who plays linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The article last month that featured Williams and his girlfriend spoke about how fatherhood had changed him. “You see a lot more from him responsibility-wise,” Fisher said in the article.