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Editor's note:The defendant entered a plea in abeyance in 2017. His plea was withdrawn and the case dismissed a year later after he met the court's conditions.
ST. GEORGE — A former Dixie State University football player has been charged with allegedly sending harassing and threatening messages about himself while he was on the team, according to court records.
The bizarre case involves Aubrey Dilone Reed, who is 25, according to court documents, though he is listed as being 23 in the 2016 Dixie State football media guide.
Reed, of St. George, was charged March 10 in Washington County Justice Court with electronic communication harassment, a class B misdemeanor.
According to two recently unsealed search warrants filed in 5th District Court, the head football coach at Dixie State contacted a police officer in September, "advising him (that) several of his African-American football players were getting 'racist and threatening emails from an anonymous source,'" and that the emails "were causing a great deal of racial tension among members of his team, and (the coach) feared 'someone was going to get hurt.' The texts are aimed at disparaging Aubrey Reed, a member of the DSU football team," the warrant states.
"The coach stated that he believed this was a hate crime and wanted something done about it," according to the search warrant.
The two warrants appear to use "text" and "email" synonymously.
"Some of the first emails contained such verbiage as: 'Aubrey Reed is a creep for anybody who knows him,'" according to the warrant.
Coaches and players replied to the texts, telling the sender to stop.
"The text messages singled out Aubrey Reed as having assaulted several females," the warrant states.
The messages stated at least three females were assaulted by Reed. The females were all interviewed by police and said they had nothing to do with the texts and emails, according to authorities.
At least one of the threatening texts "was sent from a phone that used a phone app to change the telephone number of the sending phone so the number could not be traced back to the sender," according to one of the warrants.
"Most recently, a text was sent to a group of females stating, in essence, that the sender knows where they live and that they were not safe in their residence. … The sender made it known that they should lock their doors," the warrant continued.
Police interviewed "numerous students" and looked at 38 different phone numbers that received the messages. Each message was "directed at Aubrey Reed for various sexual assaults and rapes," the warrant states.
"These messages have continued and have progressively gotten more ominous and threatening and more detailed in the personal attacks against Aubrey. They have gone from appearing to be sent by female victims of sexual assault to being sent by a fellow football player who is upset at having to 'sit on the bench' while Reed is 'the star.' One of the latest messages stated the sender has vandalized Aubrey's car and slashed the tires, and intends to kill his mother," according to the warrant.
The text messages stopped when fall semester at the university ended, but they resumed when winter semester started, the warrant states. Those messages also threatened Reed.
"The texts were so explicit that (university officials) had been receiving phone calls from concerned parents asking if their children were safe while attending Dixie State University," according to the search warrant.
Detectives, with help from the Dixie information technology department, began tracing the messages. In doing so, they traced texts sent using the Dixie State internet connection and discovered the IP address traced back to Reed's own phone.
Reed's attorney, Aric Cramer, said his client denies sending the messages. Cramer said this week he was just starting to look into the case, but he was investigating the possibility of a masking situation where someone impersonated Reed.
Both the Dixie State University Athletic Department and Washington City Attorney's Office declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation. Dixie State officials noted that Reed was a senior last season, and he's no longer part of the football program.
Reed's next court hearing is scheduled for June 21.
