Indian student at USC Armaan Premjee cleared of rape charges

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NEW YORK – Armaan Premjee, an Indian undergraduate student studying business administration at the University of Southern California, and who was accused of rape in April, has been cleared of charges by a judge, after security cameras showed that the accused was a willing sexual partner.

According to an earlier News India Times, Premjee, was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department for allegedly sexually assaulting another undergraduate student named Arshia in her campus dormitory on April 1.

The report added that Captain Billy Hayes said the alleged assault “was reported immediately” to USC’s Department of Public Safety early in the morning that day and was given to the LAPD for further investigation.

Premjee was then arrested and released on a $100,000 bond, just before 8 p.m. the same day.

However, a New York Times report says that surveillance video from that night shows the woman leading Premjee from the [Banditos] club while taking his photograph and following him into an Uber that took them to her dorm where she swiped her access card, allowing him inside.

The accuser had charged Premjee of raping her “by use of drugs” and using “a foreign object” to penetrate her in her dorm room, claiming that her roommate walked in on them.

But Judge Michael Pastor said the prosecution’s only evidence of the charge was “rape by intoxication or when the alleged victim is intoxicated,” which were just “opinions” from other students in the building who had encountered the couple that night.

In a statement, Judge Pastor said: “I look to the totality of the evidence in this case, not any individual aspect of evidence. And as I evaluate the totality of evidence from the initial encounter between Arshia [the accuser] and the defendant, Mr. Premjee, I believe that there was consent and there remained consent throughout the unfortunate incidents in this case. There is no indication of any withdrawal of consent. There is a very strongly indication that the alleged victim in this case was the initiator of any conduct between the defendant and the alleged victim,” and based his “decision on the underlying direct and circumstantial evidence and credibility issues.”

Premjee told CBS News that he was “grateful” for the surveillance videos as “she put her arms around my neck, she started kissing me,” explaining that the woman herself wanted to leave the club and have sex with him.

“She knew what she was doing. She was able to stand on her own two feet. She led the way,” he added.

A College Fix report says that Premjee still faces an ongoing Title IX investigation by USC, which is not obligated to consider the video evidence and could be expelled.