Report: Magic cut Adreian Payne after his name surfaces in MSU sexual assault scandal
The Orlando Magic have waived former first-round pick Adreian Payne, whose name has surfaced in the sexual assault scandal embroiling Michigan State, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
The Orlando Magic waived two-way player Adreian Payne, league sources tell ESPN. He was playing with G-League Lakeland Magic. Payne, a former first-round pick, has surfaced in the Michigan State scandal.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 27, 2018
Payne was playing for the G League’s Lakeland Magic. He played at Michigan State from 2010-14.
His name came up Friday in an ESPN report detailing a culture of sexual assault in East Lansing.
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Payne, along with fellow MSU basketball player Keith Appling, was accused of raping a female student in 2010 during their freshman orientation. That accusation is not news, but details that surfaced in the ESPN report are, apparently shining too bright a negative light on a marginal prospect for the Magic to justify keeping him rostered.
Then-MSU student Carolyn Schaner told police that Appling and Payne penetrated her vaginally, anally and orally against her will in their dorm room in 2010. The report states that Payne told police that he could “understand how she would feel that she was not free to leave.”
Payne has played back and forth between the NBA and the G League since being a first-round pick of the Atlanta Hawks in 2014. He has played in a total of 107 NBA games.
