Former Jamaican junior track and field representative Kevin Nedrick and his attorneys will be hoping that trial in the third-degree criminal sexual conduct charges against him will finally get under way today after the start was postponed last month in the Hennepin County Court in Minnesota, USA.

Last month’s start was pushed back, the Jamaica Observer had heard, after the prosecution lawyers asked for a delay as they were not in a position to commence with the trial and the 21-year-old former Petersfield High School standout had his US$1000 cash bail extended until today.

Nedrick, who holds the Jamaican national junior record in the shot put, was represented last month by public defender Ati Khan, who had also represented the athlete during his bail hearing earlier and was successful in getting his original bond down from US$750,000.

According to a report carried in the Star-Tribune newspaper in Minnesota, last month, Nedrick, who was about to start his senior season at the University of Minnesota, was arrested and charged in August after allegations that he overpowered a woman and sexually assaulted her.

The Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association Champs and County of Cornwall Athletics Association Western Champs Class One shot put record holder represented Jamaica in both the shot put and discus at the World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, in 2016, and was a Carifta Games silver medallist that same year, as well as winning silver and bronze at the Pan-Am Juniors in 2017 in Trujillo, Peru.

The article that was published in the Star-Tribune said Nedrick was charged with raping a woman in her campus apartment during a late-night gathering.

Nedrick, who attended Barton Community College where he was national Junior College champion before transferring to the University of Minnesota, the article said, “was arrested in the hall outside the apartment” and the criminal complaint which was quoted in the article said, “Campus police were called about 1:15 am about a sexual assault in the apartment, where the woman told officers that she was there celebrating her roommate’s 21st birthday with friends the previous night.

—Paul Reid