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PROVO — A man at the center of a 2015 rape case at Brigham Young University that led to a major change to the school’s sexual assault response policy was found not guilty late Wednesday night, according to court documents.
Nasiru Seidu, 41, was accused of raping a BYU student in 2015. A jury found him not guilty of a single charge of rape just after 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Seidu’s trial lasted four days in Utah’s Fourth District Court in Provo. The jury deliberated for about five hours before returning the not guilty verdict, according to court records.
In April 2016, the woman accusing Seidu of sexual assault filed a formal complaint against the Title IX office at BYU. She said the Title IX office was not sympathetic when she reported her sexual assault and instead turned her over to the Honor Code office.
The university reviewed the relationship between BYU’s Honor Code offices and the Title IX office after the public controversy surrounding the case. BYU’s Honor Code sets standards for behavior of university students, including prohibiting premarital sex.
BYU then revised its Honor Code policy, finalizing it in June 2017. The policy now says that students who report sexual misconduct “will not be disciplined by the university for any related honor code violation occurring at or near the time of the reported sexual misconduct unless a person’s health or safety is at risk.”
The policy is intended to encourage students to report sexual misconduct without concern that they might be punished by the Honor Code office for violations that could be uncovered during an investigation, university officials said.
Contributing: Ben Lockhart, Xoel Cardenas
