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Ex-Vanderbilt Football Players Found Guilty of Rape

Jury refutes that athletes were too drunk to know what they were doing.

Guilty.

A jury deliberated for three hours Tuesday before finding ex-Vanderbilt football players Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey guilty of aggravated rape and sexual battery stemming from a 2013 attack on a female student.

The Nashville, Tenn., jury refuted claims that Vandenburg and Batey were too drunk to know what they were doing and that binge drinking and promiscuous sex are part of the college culture.

"That's the culture that you really saw here,'' deputy district attorney Tom Thurman told ESPN. "Their mindset that they can get away with anything." 

Both young men appeared stoic yet stunned as the verdict was read.

The victim, who was a 21-year-old neuroscience and economics major at the time of the 2013 attack, said the following in a statement to the media after the verdict was announced:

"Finally, I want to remind other victims of sexual violence — You are not alone. You are not to blame."

The players will be sentenced March 6, each facing decades in prison.

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(Photos: AP Photo/The Tennessean, John Partipilo)

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