The alleged sexual assault incident involving Peyton Manning and then-Tennessee trainer Jamie Naughright has been revived and discussed for several months now, but even so, the exact details of what occurred Feb. 29, 1996 have been foggy, at best.
As Naughright examined him, according to the document, Naughright said that he intentionally placed his naked genitals on her face.“It was the gluteous maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area in between the testicles,” Naughright says. “And all that was on my face when I pushed him up and off. And it was like this and as I pushed him up to get leverage. I took my head out to push him up and off.”
An account from Greg Johnson, an old Volunteers teammate of Manning’s who was never deposed due to military deployment, appeared on Sports Illustrated’s website Wednesday in which Manning’s side of the story — that he was simply mooning a fellow athlete in the presence of Naughright — was seemingly supported. However, a new account, published by ESPN’s Outside The Lines, quotes a witness that states Johnson was not even present at the time of the incident.
In the Outside The Lines report, Kevin Horne, a former Tennessee football player who has appeared in multiple court documents OTL reviewed as being in the training room at the time of the incident, disputes the account put forward by Johnson in MMQB that states Johnson was also present at the time of the incident.
Horne told OTL’s T.J. Quinn that while he will not weigh in on the incident itself, there was no way Johnson was in the training room at the time.
“I never saw him,” said Horne, who has never spoken publicly about the incident. “I saw that story and I’m like, ‘Greg Johnson?’ I like Greg, but, sorry, I don’t remember that.”
He also contends that while he did not witness the incident — he was receiving treatment on a hamstring at the time but still had full view of the door and training room — Naughright “did not seem upset afterwards.” He added that he did not think the story warranted much attention then and “can’t believe” the incident is still a lingering issue.
OTL also managed to reach Johnson, now a law enforcement officer, via phone, who said that he was not attempting to discredit the accounts of Horne, Manning or Naughright, but rather to input the events as he saw them unfold.
“Of course. That’s natural,” he said. “And all I can do is say, ‘Hey, I was there, this is what I saw,’ and go on.“And I’m not saying that what they remember is wrong or anything, I’m just telling you what I remember.”
Johnson’s original account in MMQB states that he partially witnessed Manning moon cross-country runner Malcolm Saxon. He said that no physical contact was made between Manning and Naughright but that the then-26 year old trainer called Manning an “ass” afterward — a key detail that corroborates his story with those of Saxon and Naughright, but not of Horne or Manning, who both say they did not hear her issue any comments directly after the matter.
“Saxon walks in, and Peyton was the kind of guy who had to be friendly with everyone; he wanted to include everyone, from his teammates to the cross country guy,” he told MMQB. “He says hey to Saxon and pulls down the back of his shorts, and I saw one butt cheek, and then he pulled his pants up. And Jamie said something like, ‘Aw, you’re an ass.’ Then I left. Thought nothing of it.”
Saxon’s name has come up several times in relation to the case, as he was the sole referenced witness and supported Naughright’s account of the events, though he never explicitly supported the notion that Manning made physical contact with Naughright. He also never recounted seeing Johnson at the scene of the incident. His most notable action in relation to the case came in 2002, when he wrote a letter to Manning in which he suggested Manning “come clean.”
Naughright has yet to comment on the case publicly.
