Court rejects ex-Baylor University football player’s latest appeal of 2015 sexual assault conviction
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - An intermediate appellate court in Waco has rejected former Baylor University football player Sam Ukwuachu’s latest attempt to appeal his 2015 conviction for sexually assaulting a Baylor student.
The 10th Court of Appeals upheld 440th State District Judge Grant Kinsey’s August 2024 denial of Ukwuachu’s application for writ of habeas corpus in a nine-page opinion issued Thursday.
Ukwuachu was convicted in Waco in August 2015 of sexually assaulting a Baylor soccer player and has continued for a decade now to profess his innocence and claims the sexual encounter was consensual.
The jury recommended he be placed on felony probation, which is scheduled to end in November 2032.
In an opinion written by Justice Lee Harris, the three-judge panel rejected Ukwuachu’s claims that Kinsey improperly denied his application without a hearing, that prosecutors elicited false testimony at his trial, that they abused the grand jury process and that they committed prosecutorial misconduct by intimidating a witness in the case. Ukwuachu’s claim that his trial attorney, Jonathan Sibley, was ineffective also fell short, the court ruled.
Kinsey was assigned the appeal after 54th State District Judge Susan Kelly recused herself.
McLennan County First Assistant District Attorney Ryan Calvert said Ukwuachu’s latest attempt to win a new trial illustrates that “the fight for justice continues long after a trial ends.”
“In the years since, the case has continually been fought in courts of appeals, including the highest criminal court in Texas,” Calvert said. “Now, more than 10 years after his conviction, our hope is that the justice delivered to Ukwuachu in 2015 is approaching finality.”
Ukwuachu, a former defensive end from Pearland, was a freshman All-American at Boise State before transferring to Baylor.
Ukwuachu did not immediately return a phone call Thursday. He has the option of asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin to review his writ application again.
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