A New Jersey teenager on a football recruiting visit to a Massachusetts college has been charged with raping a student during the trip.
Jamad Thomas, of East Orange, was released on $20,000 bail and ordered to stay away from Merrimack College after pleading not guilty Monday.
Prosecutors say the 18-year-old Thomas raped a female student at the North Andover school inside a dormitory bathroom just after 1 a.m. Sunday.
Thomas, in an interview with police, said the sex was consensual.
Thomas' lawyer, Benjamin Faulkner, tells The Eagle-Tribune that his client "asserts his innocence completely" and will be exonerated in court.
Faulkner says Thomas graduated from high school in 2015 and was doing a post-graduate year at prep school.
He is due back in court May 31.