An allegation of sexual assault didn’t keep the Bills from selecting cornerback Maxwell Hairston in round one. That allegation has now taken on a new form.
Via WKBW.com, Hairston [has been sued for sexual assault](https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/civil-lawsuit-filed-against-buffalo-bills-first-round-pick-maxwell-hairston).
The incident allegedly happened in 2021, while Hairston attended the University of Kentucky. The civil complaint claims that Hairston engaged in non-consensual sexual contact with the plaintiff in her dorm room. She reported the incident to law enforcement at the time, and she later transferred to a different school.
Hairston was not criminally charged.
“Yeah, he’s an impeccable kid and [we’ve done a lot of research](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/brandon-beane-bills-researched-maxwell-hairston-allegations-hes-an-impeccable-kid),” Bills G.M. Brandon Beane said after selecting Hairston in April. “I think all teams were aware of the Title IX thing. That was fully investigated by the school. There’s everything out, he even volunteered to do a polygraph and had notes. It was one of those where there was zero — zero — information saying that this actually happened to what the accusation was. Just like anything in this world, you can’t just take someone’s account and think that’s the truth, but yes, we fully investigated that. If there was anything to that he wouldn’t have been invited to the Combine, to the draft — he was at the draft last night. Every person you talk to at Kentucky — teammates, staff there, plus what we’ve done — I would say this is a heck of a young man, every person you ask. That’s unfortunate when things like that are attached to someone’s name and in this case, it doesn’t seem to be anything there.”
Whether there’s anything there will now become a matter of the civil justice system, where the ultimate outcome could be a full-blown trial in open court. And the evidence developed through the litigation could, in theory, attract the interest of 345 Park Avenue.