Twin Cities Suburbs

Additional rape charges dropped against ex-Bethel athlete after other cases end with acquittals

Gideon Erhabor said he felt “relief, gratitude, and honestly, the ability to breathe again” once the last of the cases was dismissed.

By Paul Walsh

The Minnesota Star Tribune

November 20, 2025 at 6:21PM

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office said in a court filing Monday that it was dropping its final case against former Bethel University football player Gideon O. Erhabor because it “is unable to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Prosecutors who filed three rape cases against a former Bethel University football player have ended their yearslong pursuit of guilty verdicts by dismissing their last case after the other two ended in acquittals.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office said in a court filing last Monday, the day the third trial was to start, that it was dropping its final case against Gideon O. Erhabor, 27, because it “is unable to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“This decision to dismiss was made after a thorough review of the evidence and our inability to meet our burden of proving each element of the criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt as required by law,” read a statement Thursday from Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office. “While we acknowledge the immediate disappointment for the victim in this case, we do not want this decision to hinder in any way victims of sexual assault in our community from reporting their assault to law enforcement.”

Erhabor, in comments released through his attorney, said he felt “relief, gratitude, and honestly, the ability to breathe again” once the last of the three cases ended in his favor.

He said the past several years “were incredibly difficult, but I always knew the truth would come out. Hearing that the final case was dismissed felt like the closing of a chapter I’ve been waiting a long time to move past.”

Defense attorney Daniel Gonnerman explained that his client’s accuser in the final case was not available to start trial.

“The prosecutor asked for additional time to consult with his supervisor and the complaining witness. After that, the case was dismissed by the state,” Gonnerman said. “I appreciate that the prosecutor took an objective view of the evidence and decided to not pursue the charges any further.”

Gonnerman cast doubt on the strength of the prosecution’s case “because Mr. Erhabor’s statement to the police was not an admission of a criminal act. Neither the complaining witness nor any of the other witnesses [in the two previous trials] could establish this was a crime, because there was no testimony that the interaction between the complaining witness and Mr. Erhabor was not consensual.”

The most recent acquittal came in June 2025, when Judge Joy Bartscher found Erhabor not guilty of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with allegations from an 18-year-old student who said Erhabor assaulted her in his dorm room on Sept. 11, 2018.

Bartscher said in her bench verdict that the woman’s trial testimony “was somewhat ambiguous, [and] she testified that she [did] not know for sure whether she said ‘no’ out loud” during what Erhabor said was a consensual act.

In October 2022, jurors acquitted Erhabor of the same charge stemming from a 21-year-old student’s allegation that Erhabor assaulted her at an off-campus house party in Shoreview on Dec. 8, 2018.

Bethel spokesman Timothy Hammer issued a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune in response to the cases concluding that read, “While we do not comment on individual student matters, we remain dedicated to thorough processes, comprehensive support services, and encouraging anyone who experiences harm to come forward.”

Erhabor, of McKinney, Texas, was a running back for Bethel for two seasons before leaving the Christian private school in Arden Hills in 2018.

“This experience definitely changed me,” Erhabor, who is back in his native Texas, said Thursday. “It tested my faith, my resilience, and my ability to keep moving forward, even when it felt like everything was against me. Still, I refused to let these accusations define my future.”