photo by: Chance Parker

Kansas' Arterio Morris dribbles the ball during the Bill Self Basketball Camp scrimmage on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at Allen Fieldhouse.

A University of Kansas basketball player violently sexually assaulted a woman this summer on the KU campus as she begged him to stop, according to allegations in a recently released affidavit in the case.

The now former player, Arterio Demetrius Morris, 20, of DeSoto, Texas, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one felony count of rape, according to charging documents. The charge relates to an incident on Aug. 26 and involves an 18-year-old woman.

According to the affidavit in support of Morris’ arrest, parts of which have been redacted, the woman told KU police that Morris had raped her in the early-morning hours of Aug. 26 in McCarthy Hall, the complex where basketball players reside. She said that Morris pulled her up into his lap and forced himself on her, despite being told no multiple times. When she attempted to get off Morris, he pulled her back down, she said, and continued to rape her in various positions as she pleaded with him to stop.

When the woman — saying “Stop. This really hurts” — attempted to push Morris off, he held her down by the neck, according to the affidavit. Morris allegedly said, “You know you like it,” and the woman, powerless, eventually “gave up” and “hoped it would be over soon.”

A few minutes after the incident, the woman told two people in a nearby bedroom what had happened. Morris later spoke to someone, whose name is redacted, and that person stated in an interview that Morris said he stopped having sex with the woman but then “fumbled his words” and denied having sex with her altogether.

When police contacted Morris at his residence on Sept. 11 about the incident, he declined to give a statement and referred them to an attorney.

The affidavit says that KU police received notes from conversations that staff at KU’s Office of Civil Rights and Title IX had with Morris as part of their investigation. In those notes, Morris indicated that nothing had happened with the woman in the living room area that morning and that he had not been alone with her.

Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden, not the defense, had moved to seal the affidavit, thereby keeping its contents secret. However, Judge Sally Pokorny rejected the reasons for secrecy given by Seiden and released the affidavit with some information, such as witness names and room numbers, redacted.

Morris was arrested Sept. 29 on a warrant and was released on a $75,000 surety bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 18, according to the jail booking log.

Morris’ initial suspension from the KU basketball program began on Sept. 15, and he was dropped from the team the day he was arrested.

Morris, who transferred to KU from Texas following his freshman year, recently pleaded no contest in a Texas misdemeanor assault case. He had been charged with a Class A misdemeanor assault several months after a June 2022 altercation with an ex-girlfriend; he pleaded it down to a less severe Class C misdemeanor on Sept. 14, requiring only the payment of a $362 fine. That case was completed one day before KU suspended him from the program.

The original Class A charge was considered assault causing bodily injury to a family member, which in Texas includes dating relationships. In the resolution of Morris’ case, obtained by the Journal-World, the state abandoned its finding of family violence.