Pitt suspended highly touted freshman basketball player Dior Johnson Friday night after he was charged with assaulting a woman in an incident early last month.
According to WTAE, the 18-year-old Johnson is charged with aggravated and simple assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, and strangulation resulting from the incident, which allegedly occurred in an apartment in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood late on Sept. 5 and early the next morning.
Pitt officials announced that Johnson has been suspended indefinitely, “pending the resolution of legal charges filed against him.”
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the woman who filed the complaint against Johnson reported he became angry with her for getting him and his phone wet, that he “slapped her across the face ‘full force’ causing her face to become ‘very red and puffy,'” according to the police complaint. Johnson took the woman’s phone, left around midnight, and returned several hours later.
She said she tried to leave, but Johnson would not let her. She then called 911 but Johnson hung up and chased her with scissors and pushed her head into a bed, making breathing difficult.
Johnson also reportedly cut himself with the scissors, telling the woman he would tell police she had attacked him.
After Johnson left the apartment, the woman left and went to receive medical treatment.
Johnson, a 6-3 point guard, is one of the school’s highest-rated prospects in years. Rivals.com rated him the No. 38 overall prospect and No. 7 point guard in the freshman class.
Johnson is the second Pitt player in a year to face assault charges. Last November, guard Ithiel Horton was arrested and charged with hitting a police officer in Pittsburgh. Horton, who is no longer with the team, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.
[WTAE]
