New allegations have arisen that James Franklin contacted the victim who was allegedly raped by several of his football players when he was head coach at Vanderbilt University.
What's more, Franklin had allegedly recruited the victim - in an apparent violation of NCAA rules - to assist him in recruiting players to the Vanderbilt team because she was "pretty."
The allegations were made in a court filing by the defense in the rape case and reported Tuesday by The Tennessean.
According to The Tennessean:
The filing also includes a new allegation about interactions between the alleged victim and former head football coach James Franklin and former director of performance enhancement Dwight Galt — both now at Penn State University.
Referring to records, the attorneys said the victim was contacted by Franklin and Galt during a medical examination four days after the rape to explain "that they cared about her because she assisted them with recruiting."
It went on to say that at some point, "Coach Franklin called her in for a private meeting and told her he wanted her to get fifteen pretty girls together and form a team to assist with the recruiting even though he knew it was against the rules. He added that all the other colleges did it."
The newspaper added: "Reached by cellphone Tuesday, Franklin repeatedly said he was 'not interested in talking.' He declined an offer to hear the allegations."
Penn State, it reported, did not respond to requests for comment.
The Franklin allegations were a small part of a much larger argument by the defense that the case should be dismissed because the prosecution had either destroyed or was withholding evidence.
The District Attorney in the case issued a brief statement denying those accusations.
"We strongly deny these baseless allegations referenced in the motions filed late this afternoon and deny any inappropriate conduct in this case," the statement said.
Earlier, when anonymously sourced allegations were reported that Franklin may have viewed video of the incident on one of the player's cell phone, prosecutors were explicit: "We just wanted to state clearly that there’s no evidence whatsoever where Coach Franklin was involved in any way in the cover-up or has done anything inappropriate."
Most of the documents in the case have been sealed and many proceedings take place behind closed doors.
The allegation that Franklin tried to assemble a team of "pretty girls" to help with Vanderbilt recruiting conjures another statement Franklin made about the importance of attractive women.
During a radio interview in 2012, Franklin said one of the top qualifications for his assistant coaches is they must have attractive wives.
"I've been saying it for a long time, I will not hire an assistant coach until I've seen his wife," Franklin said. "If she looks the part, and she's a D-1 recruit, then you got a chance to get hired. That's part of the deal."
He continued: "There's a very strong correlation between having the confidence, going up and talking to a woman, and being quick on your feet and having some personality and confidence and being fun and articulate, than it is walking into a high school and recruiting a kid and selling him."
Franklin subsequently issued an apology on Twitter, and Vanderbilt's athletic director said that "clearly what he said is not how he feels and not how we feel."
Before Franklin was hired, there was speculation the extent to which Penn State would have to deal with public relations baggage from his association with the rape scandal.
Neither Franklin nor various Penn State spokespeople immediately responded to requests for comment.
NOTE: This story has been updated from the original to remove a dead link and to add the earlier statement from the prosecutor that there was no evidence that Franklin had done anything inappropriate.
