This story first appeared in the Dec. 7, 2017 issue of The Vantage.
By Delaney Hiegert
A judge could decide today whether to grant a restraining order against a Newman University student who allegedly intimidated and verbally attacked a member of Newman’s volleyball staff.
According to court documents, a temporary restraining order was filed on Nov. 20 against Daniel Nwosu, a Newman senior and former member of the men’s basketball team.
When contacted on Wednesday, Nwosu denied the claims of intimidation and verbal attacks and said he feels the incidents have been blown out of proportion.
The court files The Vantage obtained through an open records request did not name the person who filed the restraining order.
However, the files did say that the person had been asked to work from home for two weeks in a row because of “concerns for my safety on campus.”
Nwosu said he had never been violent in any of the interactions with the staff member and didn’t think he had behaved in a way to cause concern for anyone’s safety.
The temporary restraining order alleges that Nwosu disobeyed requests to leave the gym during volleyball practices on multiple occasions, while cursing and invading the personal space of a volleyball staff member.
Nwosu said he didn’t understand why he needed to leave the gym and that he had permission to be there.
“I had it worked out with the cheer team that I could shoot during their practices [in the mornings],” he said.
Nwosu was a former NCAA Division I transfer from the University of Montana and played basketball at Newman from 2015 through 2017.
He became well known through the rap and spoken-word poetry videos he posted on YouTube, where he has more than 380,000 subscribers.
After finishing his senior season last spring, Nwosu returned to Newman to complete his undergraduate degree in communication.
Nwosu said he is about to complete his degree and plans to move to Los Angeles this week to pursue a music career. He said the temporary restraining order was filed the day after he announced his plans to move to California.
The documents state that Newman banned Nwosu from De Mattias on Oct. 4 because of “his repeated incidents” with the staff member and because he was “blatantly disobeying Newman orders” to stay out of the building.
Nwosu said he was told in October by former Dean of Students Levi Esses and Director of Academic Resource Center and Title IX Coordinator Case Bell that he could not enter the building because of a Title IX investigation.
“I wasn’t given any papers or anything. They just verbally told me,” he said.
Nwosu said he was told the investigation would take around 30 days, but he was not contacted within that time period.
He said he entered De Mattias once after he was banned, on Nov. 5, to print a paper and upload a video using a computer in O’Shaughnessy Hall and that he was in the building for less than 10 minutes.
Athletic Director and Vice President of Student Affairs Vic Trilli said he could not comment on the matter.
Nwosu said he has asked multiple students, including a cheerleader, a volleyball player and a men’s basketball player, to speak on his behalf at the hearing, which is scheduled for 9 a.m. today.
This story first appeared in the December 7, 2017 issue of The Vantage.]]>
