Rape charges dropped against US university student after evidence of consent emerges

Charges have been dropped against a University of Southern California student who had been accused of drugging and raping another student in her dorm room.

ABC reports Armann Karim Premjee, 20, was arrested in April after being accused of assaulting the woman in her room on April 1.

The charges of rape by use of drugs and sexual penetration by a foreign object were dropped during a preliminary hearing last week.

Premjee’s defense attorney Harland Braun said evidence, including surveillance video, indicated consensual sex.

The video captured the moment the woman at a popular bar near the university made a sexual gesture to a friend – poking a finger through a circle with her hand – that Braun claimed indicated she planned to have sex with Premjee.

Other evidence of consent included an Uber driver saying the woman was “jumping all over” Premjee in the vehicle’s back seat while another surveillance video showed the woman checking Premjee into her dorm.

"I never doubted my innocence because I knew from the very beginning that I hadn't done anything wrong," Premjee said according to the ABC.

If convicted as charged, Premjee could have faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.