Jarryd Hayne fled the US and abandoned his NFL career days after police asked to question him over allegations he raped a woman on a night out.
The NRL superstar-turned fringe NFL player just days before the alleged rape insisted he was there to stay and was not returning to Australia.
But just a few months later he abruptly ‘retired’ from professional gridiron and was on a plane back home and soon joined the Gold Coast Titans.
Hayne was accused of sexual assault in December 2015 when he was playing in the National Football League for the San Francisco 49ers.
The woman, known only as JV, alleged Hayne took her home after meeting in a Californian bar and raped her. The case was eventually settled for nearly $100,000.
The rape allegations were not made public until 2017, when Hayne was already back in Australia, but San Jose police began investigating the accusations 19 months earlier, in May 2016.
Hayne was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault against an Australia woman from an incident on September 30, 2018. He is pictured at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court on Monday with his wife of two months Amelia Bonnici
The 33-year-old cross-code athlete was accused of sexual assault in another incident in 2015 when he was playing in the National Football League for the San Francisco 49ers
Days later, Hayne left the US to try out for Fiji’s Rugby team after being contacted by police.
‘He left quickly after she made her complaint and after the police reached out to him,’ a source close to the initial investigation told the Daily Telegraph.
‘I can tell you there were others on the team who were interviewed or had requests made to interview them before May 15 (when he announced he was quitting).’
The sudden departure came just six months after Hayne declared he wasn’t going anywhere in an interview from San Jose.
‘There have been a couple of dark days. But this is where I want to be,’ the two-time Dally medalist told the Daily Telegraph on December 8, 2015.
‘Because for the normal person, if you’re in a situation like I am, the response would be to go into your comfort zone and return home.
‘But I’m not normal. I’m unique.’
Just 13 days later, the 33-year-old cross-code athlete allegedly met the woman known as JV home in a San Jose bar, the Willow Den, on December 21, after a game between the 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals.
The woman allegedly met Hayne at San Jose bar, the Willow Den (pictured) during a night out in December 2015
In a civil suit filed in an American court ‘JV’ alleged Jarryd Hayne raped her in 2015
The civil case alleged the woman became intoxicated before Hayne took her back to his apartment in an Uber.
It was there the woman, a devoted Christian who was a virgin at the time, alleges she was raped by Hayne.
The civil suit claims Hayne and other members of the team joined JV and her friends at the San Jose bar where they ‘ate and drank’.
JV became ‘highly intoxicated’ at the bar, with a friend telling police in the civil suit they had never seen her so drunk.
According to the suit, Hayne took the ‘heavily intoxicated’ JV to his San Jose home in an Uber, ‘despite having minimal interaction that night’. She passed out in the car during the trip due to her ‘extreme level of intoxication.’
JV claims in the civil suit she has no memory of how she got back to the then-29-year-old’s house, but has ‘faint recollections’ of being in an elevator and walking down a hallway.
She said her next memory was of a man with a similar build to Hayne coming towards her, before the man ‘put his hands on her shoulders and flipped her around so she was no longer facing him’.
According to the suit, JV then heard the man say ‘no kissing’. She says she recognised the voice to be that of Hayne’s.
The claim states JV’s last memories were falling down on a bed. She woke up the next morning in the same bed, naked, draped in a bed sheet.
Hayne will be under virtual house arrest at home on the NSW Central Coast, until his sentencing in May
Court papers lodged by the woman say she experienced ‘tremendous vaginal pain’ the next morning and woke up ‘covered in a single sheet on a bed with a large pool of blood next to her.’
JV was ‘fearful’ of telling police about the incident, having heard about a number of incidents involving professional athletes where alleged victims were ‘discredited and even blamed’ for reporting sexual assaults.
She reported the alleged rape to police in May 2016 after being overcome with the ‘anxiety’ of keeping Hayne’s alleged actions secret.
The case was settled for nearly $100,000 in August, 2019, despite Hayne maintaining his innocence.
On Monday he was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault against an Australia woman from an incident on September 30, 2018.
JV’s lawyer, high profile attorney John Clune who represented the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape in 2004, told the Daily Telegraph they were pleased with the outcome.
‘We applaud the jury’s verdict and are inspired by the victim’s courage to persevere through two separate trials,’ Mr Clune said.
‘The fact that these events occurred while Mr. Hayne was being sued for sexual battery in the US is disturbing.’
Hayne was found guilty on Monday at the NSW District Court of two counts of sexual assault.
The 33-year-old was found not guilty of alternative charges of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent inflicting actual bodily harm to the woman.
Hayne will be under virtual house arrest at home on the NSW Central Coast, until his sentencing in May.
Jarryd Hayne turns to his wife Amellia and fiercest protector mum Jodie in his darkest hour – with the pair running errands and supporting the NRL star as he faces jail for rape
Dan Piotrowski for Daily Mail Australia
She is Jarryd Hayne’s most fierce protector and a key part of her son’s legend – and Jodie Hayne is still in her son’s corner, running errands to help his young family, hosting his wife for a meal and accompanying her boy to court.
Ms Hayne returned to the humble home on the NSW central coast that her son famously bought her with a trolley full of groceries following a supermarket trip on Thursday.
Jodie Hayne returned to the Central Coast home her son bought her with a trolley full of groceries after a shopping trip to Coles on Thursday afternoon
She was joined a short time later by Hayne’s wife Amellia Bonnici, 29, who arrived with containers of food – some four days after the footy superstar was found guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent with an unnamed woman.
Both women watched on earlier in the week as a jury of seven men and five women found Hayne, 33, guilty, and they have been nearby after he was bailed to the same region, awaiting sentencing.
Now Hayne faces a grim countdown to the day of his sentencing on May 6 at the Newcastle District Court, with Judge Helen Syme saying that a custodial sentence – in other words, jail – is ‘inevitable’.
Family matriarch Jodie cast a wary eye at media peering in from outside the court room during Monday’s sensational court appearance, her boy hugging Amellia, who he married in January after five years together.
Through the week, it is understood Ms Hayne has been assisting her son and daughter-in-law in running errands and caring for their two children, aged one and four.
She has also been fending off media inquiries like a pro – raising a hand and saying: ‘I’m not interested – thank you anyway’, when approached for comment on her son.
Hayne made his first report to a Central Coast police station earlier this week, dressed in white shorts, a navy jacket and Birkenstock
Jarryd Hayne once owned a property portfolio worth $5million before selling off the trendy inner-Sydney terraces and moving into a humble home he bought for just $380,000
Sam McPhee for Daily Mail Australia
Jarryd Hayne’s property portfolio was once worth more than $5 million including terraces and cottages in trendy Sydney suburbs.
But he will now spend his last weeks as a free man in a humble $388,750 pile on the Central Coast as he awaits his sentence for raping a young woman.
Hayne was at one stage earning north of $1 million a year, both with the Parramatta Eels and Gold Coast Titans, making him the highest paid player in the NRL.
He invested that salary into a properties in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and elsewhere, but as his career declined and legal bills added up he offloaded almost all of them.
Jarryd Hayne’s property portfolio was once worth more than $5 million including terraces and cottages in trendy Sydney suburbs, including this one in Darlinghurst
The 33-year-old also owns two apartments in Parramatta and a house in Umina Beach where his mother Jodie lives in a granny flat out the back.
He built the 60sqm granny flat last year at a cost of $80,000.
This is the home he is believed to be staying in with his wife Amellia Bonnici while he awaits sentencing on May 6 while out on $50,000 bail.
His former Darlinghurst home, which he attempted to rent out four different times, is described by real estate agents as a ‘chic inner city haven’ tucked away in a quiet, leafy enclave.
He offloaded the three-bedroom, two-bathroom 1890s terrace in late 2019 for $2.2 million after buying it for $1.58 million in 2013.
His Darlinghurst home is described by real estate agents as a ‘chic inner city haven’ which is tucked away in a quiet, leafy enclave
