4th sexual battery charge filed against former OSU student
BY ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writer
Saturday, January 05, 2013
1/05/13 at 7:12 AM
STILLWATER - A former Oklahoma State University student who is accused of sexually assaulting other students was charged Friday with a fourth count of sexual battery, records show.
In the new count, Nathan Micheal Cochran, 22, is accused of "touching, mauling and feeling the body or private parts" of a male - who is described in a court document only as older than 16 - on Aug. 11, the document states.
Cochran was charged Dec. 12 with three counts of sexual battery over allegations of two similar assaults - one in an OSU dormitory Aug. 15 and another at a Stillwater house Nov. 3, 2011.
He surrendered to Stillwater police Dec. 12 and was released from the Payne County Jail early Dec. 14 on $100,000 bond, authorities reported.
Cochran, a Heavener High School graduate who had served as secretary of OSU's Interfraternity Council, was accused by five OSU students in November of sexually assaulting them while intoxicated between May 2011 and Oct. 22. Two of the assaults are alleged to have occurred on university property, including one in a dormitory, according to a school document.
Those accusers told university administrators of the allegations between Nov. 12 and Nov. 28, and university discipline panels ruled Nov. 30 that four of the complaints were justified.
The university suspended Cochran for three years, but administrators said they did not contact police out of concern for the students' privacy and because they believed that the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act prohibited them from doing so.
The sexual battery charges stem from an investigation that began the day after a reporter with the Daily O'Collegian, the university's student newspaper, asked officers about the allegations Dec. 6.
Police have said the alleged assaults connected to those charges were not among those originally reported to administrators.
In each case reviewed by police, the crimes reportedly occurred while the alleged victim was asleep or trying to sleep. Cochran was alleged to be drunk at an OSU dormitory in the Nov. 3, 2011, assault.
The initial court filing for Friday's charge alleges that Cochran told the victim that he wanted to know what it was like to have sexual contact with a male and tried to put his hands down the victim's pants. The victim was on a bed at the time, the document says.
Stillwater Police Capt. Randy Dickerson said late Friday afternoon that he had no additional information about the allegation.
Before Cochran's latest charge, Dickerson reported that police were interviewing other potential victims and expected more charges to come.
Original Print Headline: New charge filed on ex-OSU student
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
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Cochran
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