UNCC student charged with second-degree rape

UPDATE: The Mecklenburg County District Attorney's Office dropped rape charges against Joshua Arford on April 7.

A UNC Charlotte student has been charged with second-degree rape in connection with an alleged weekend assault in his dorm room.

Campus police identified the suspect as Joshua Arford, 18. The woman, a 19-year-old UNCC student, was treated at Carolinas Health Care University on Saturday morning.

The Observer does not identify victims of sexual assault. Second-degree rape charges normally involve a victim who is physically or mentally unable to resist.

Arford’s attorney, Adam Seifer of the law firm SeiferFlatow, said his client is innocent and that Alford’s arrest was “a rush to judgment” by police.

“It’s obviously an unfortunate situation,” he said. “This will affect two young people’s lives regardless of the outcome.”

According to an affidavit filed by UNCC police Sgt. Alan Wilson, the female student told police she met Arford after she had become intoxicated at an off-campus party, then agreed to leave with him.

The pair returned to Arford’s seventh-floor residence at Holshouser Hall, where “a degree of intercourse” occurred, the affidavit says. The victim’s blood-alcohol level was measured at the hospital at .206, the affidavit says, and police did not take a sworn statement from her at that time due to her level of intoxication.

Arford told a police detective that he did not want to talk on Saturday morning. He was taken to the campus police station and charged.

Sexual misconduct involving college students remains at the heart of a national debate over due process, campus safety, the accuracy of crime statistics put out by schools, and how universities handle the reported cases.

In 2015 – the most recent year where statistics were immediately available – UNCC reported 12 rapes on its main campus, with all but one occurring at a residential facility.

Meanwhile, the Feb. 4 arrest of a Davidson College student set off demonstrations last week on that campus.

This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 4:39 PM with the headline "UNCC student charged with second-degree rape."