Bills first-round cornerback Maxwell Hairston was accused of sexual assault in college and was sued in connection with the incident this month, but Bills General Manager Brandon Beane says the team is very confident that Hairston did nothing wrong.
Beane says there are limits to what Hairston can say because of the legal process, but that everything he knows about Hairston tells him that he was falsely accused.
“It’s frustrating because in the legal world you can’t sit there and say things back and forth, you’ve got to let it go, but this happened to this young man over four years ago. He gave up his phone to prove, he took polygraph test, this kid didn’t run from it, he answered every single thing,” Beane said. “People can make accusations and do things and I have no idea what the agenda is there, but I can tell you every stone we turned over, every door we looked behind, this is a very good young man. A young man you would let in your house, you would let watch your kids, hang out with, whoever. He is genuinely a good person, he’s got sisters, he’s got a mother, he’s got a great family, raised the right way. I’ve met his parents, I’ve met his close family. I would feel terrible if someone said that about one of my sons.”
Beane said football players are sometimes the victims in false accusations. Although Beane did not mention former Bills draft pick Matt Araiza by name, he appeared to signal that he regrets cutting Araiza four months after drafting him in 2022 because of a sexual assault accusation that ultimately led to no criminal charges, and to Araiza filing a defamation lawsuit against the accuser.
“I think we need to remember in the world, sometimes these guys — I’m not going to get into it — but we see these accusations, sometimes these guys can be victims, too,” Beane said. “They make a lot of money. And I just want to make sure — rarely do people defend them. And that’s hard for me to see sometimes because I’ve seen it. We had it here with a player a few years ago that’s no longer here that was wrongly accused. And it’s frustrating and everyone should — anyone that’s met Maxwell Hairston genuinely knows what a great young man he is.”
Hairston was never criminally charged and was cleared by the University of Kentucky’s investigation.
