photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Hayden Brae Gragg

A late-night encounter between two University of Kansas students began with consensual kissing but devolved into a sex crime, court documents allege.

Hayden Brae Gragg, 19, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., was arrested on suspicion of rape, a high-level felony, in October 2018. He was released without being charged pending completion of an investigation.

He was arrested on a warrant July 16 and charged with sexual battery, a misdemeanor, court documents show.

The Journal-World requested and recently received the affidavit supporting Gragg’s arrest. Allegations in affidavits have not been proved in court.

The victim reported the incident to the KU Office of Public Safety nearly a month afterward, court records show.

The victim, 18 at the time, told police she arrived back at her Self Hall dorm room from a party around 1 a.m. Sept. 14, 2018. She said she was drunk, and she had been messaging with Gragg — also 18 at the time — on Snapchat, according to the affidavit.

She told police Gragg wanted to hang out, and she sent him her room number thinking he couldn’t enter the dorm because he was a resident of a different building. But he knocked on her door about 15 minutes later.

The victim said Gragg “made a comment along the lines of her sending him on an impossible mission and that he was able to walk in with a group of people,” according to the affidavit. Then the two went into her room and started kissing, which she was OK with, but then he started touching her sexually “against her consent.”

She was “annoyed and shocked” that he didn’t stop when she told him to, the affidavit alleges. She said she told him she wanted him to leave, that she had class in the morning and that her roommate would be home soon, the affidavit says, and Gragg eventually stopped on his own.

Just after Gragg left, about an hour after he arrived, the victim texted a family member: “this guy was in my bed and I told him to stop and he wouldn’t”, “i’m going to bed” and “i’m mad”, according to the affidavit.

The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office decided not to file charges against Gragg immediately after KU police arrested him on Oct. 11, 2018. The office received the complete police reports in November and filed the sexual battery charge in April.

“A thorough case review was completed and a charging decision was made based upon all the information available to us,” Cheryl Wright Kunard, assistant to the DA, told the Journal-World via email last month.

According to online court records, Gragg pleaded not guilty on July 23. His next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 22.

Cooper Overstreet, Gragg’s defense attorney, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Online KU records show a Hayden Gragg enrolled as a student as of Monday.