The University of Utah student-athlete who fled to Canada after he was accused of rape was nabbed by authorities after re-entering the country, prosecutors said.
Benjamin Smyth, a Vancouver native in his second year at the school, was arrested this week and charged with sodomy, sexual abuse and rape, according to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
Smyth’s attorney declined to comment on whether Smyth returned from his escape to Canada willingly or was caught when his return to the country triggered a warrant for his arrest.
“It is our understanding that he is in custody in Seattle,” Gill said.
Smyth is accused of forcing himself on a fellow student the night he met her in August 2022.
The 19-year-old Division I scholarship diver visited the unnamed woman in her dorm room after learning her roommates weren’t home, court documents allege.
The victim rejected all of Smyth’s repeated alleged attempts to sexually engage with her — including a suggestion of his to play “truth or dare.”
Eventually, Smyth allegedly pushed the young woman down to the floor as she cried “no,” that she “did not want to do that” and expressed pain.
The woman reported the crime in February, resulting in the immediate expulsion of Smyth from the university’s diving team — just two weeks before the team’s Division I championship meet.
Smyth is accused of initially denying that he knew the victim, but later retracted the lie and claimed the two had consensual sex, the arrest warrant said.
According to Smyth’s friends, the diver frequently bragged “about the number of women he has sex with” and compiled a list of his conquests to show others.
When a detective arrived at Smyth’s dorm room to serve a restraining order, his roommate said that the diver had packed his bags and moved out.
The school confirmed that Smyth was enrolled in the spring semester when he allegedly escaped to his native Vancouver.
The university has since scrubbed Smyth’s profile from its athletics site, though an existing account shows that he competed in a meet just three days before his alleged victim reported the assault.
“We take matters of this type very seriously, and have continued to monitor the situation,” the University of Utah said in a statement.
With Post wires
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