Police in southern Utah had been investigating a Brigham Young University football player accused of rape for nearly a year before the university’s administration and the team’s coaching staff were alerted about the allegations.
In the fallout since 21-year-old Parker Trent Kingston’s arrest on Feb. 11, that timing has drawn widespread attention and questions.
The gap, for instance, allowed the standout wide receiver to continue playing for an entire season — including a bowl game in December — before he was charged. He now faces one felony count of rape.
Why wasn’t BYU told about the allegations sooner? Here’s what The Salt Lake Tribune has learned.
BYU confirms law enforcement timeline
First, BYU officials confirmed what law enforcement agencies have also said — that the university’s top leaders didn’t learn about the situation until Kingston was booked in Washington County jail on Feb. 11, according to a statement the school provided.
“University administration and athletic administration, including BYU Head Coach Kalani Sitake, were only made aware of the investigation and allegations after Kingston’s arrest,” said BYU spokesperson Audrey Perry Martin in a statement.
As soon as officials at the private Provo school found out, Kingston was removed from the team and expelled.
Those notifications happened exactly how they were supposed to, according to an expert in Title IX, the law that charges universities with responding timely to reports of sexual assault.
That’s even with BYU’s police department learning about the allegations against Kingston earlier, in November — months before the school’s administration and coaching staff did — and not passing the information on.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pictures of Brigham Young University (BYU).
The reason is that the alleged assault, while it involved a university football player, did not happen at the university, which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“The alleged crime occurred in a private residence in St. George,” said S. Daniel Carter, the president of SAFE Campuses, LLC. “… There was therefore no requirement for any internal university reporting, statistics, timely warning or Title IX response.”
If the alleged assault had happened on campus, it likely would have triggered a different response, including an alert to the community that an assault had occurred.
But BYU’s police department was ultimately restricted by state law governing the sharing of information in an active investigation led by another agency.
When did the investigation start?
The Kingston investigation started in February 2025, when a then-20-year-old woman told officers at a southern Utah hospital that Kingston had allegedly assaulted her at her St. George home four days prior.
She reported that Kingston had come to her place in the early morning hours to watch a movie. They engaged in “some sexual activity” that did not include intercourse, the charging documents state.
The woman told forensic experts that she had texted Kingston beforehand not to come over if he was expecting sex, according to court documents. When Kingston started to fall asleep, the woman said she left the room to get ready for bed.
When she returned, she alleges Kingston initiated sexual activity. “She told Kingston to stop several times and tried to push him off of her,” the charges state. But Kingston allegedly forced her to have sex.
Kingston later told detectives that “all sexual activity was consensual,” according to court documents. He made his first court appearance earlier this month, where his bail was set at $100,000 and he was released under specific conditions, including that he wear an ankle monitor to track his location.
When did BYU’s police department get involved?
During the course of their investigation, St. George police eventually notified BYU’s police department, according to Tiffany Mitchell, the spokesperson for the southern Utah agency.
That was at the end of November 2025.
BYU police’s spokesperson, Karen Ellingson, specified that was on Nov. 24. At the time, St. George police wanted to serve a warrant to seize a cellphone belonging to Kingston and asked BYU police for help.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A BYU police officer on the sideline as BYU hosts Texas Tech, NCAA football in Provo on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023.
BYU officers collected and delivered the phone to St. George police, Ellingson noted.
Under Utah’s public records law — known as the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA — campus police could not share any information its officers had on the case because it’s not their jurisdiction.
Utah law, Ellingson added, “prohibits a governmental entity from disclosing shared records and restricts the release of information outside of law enforcement that is part of an open investigation.”
Carter confirmed that is the proper protocol. Had that been broken — and had BYU’s police department informed the school’s administration — it could have compromised the integrity of the criminal investigation into Kingston.
“A local police agency operating hundreds of miles away would want to simply avoid any risk of interference by keeping the information tightly controlled,” Carter said.
There are times when information can be disclosed, added Perry Martin, with BYU, but “only in limited situations involving public safety or public law enforcement.”
As the Kingston investigation evolved, law enforcement did not consider there to be an immediate risk to the broader campus community.
“BYU police acted in compliance with criminal investigation protocol and university policy,” she said.
Law enforcement at BYU has previously been scrutinized for sharing information with campus administrators, including the school’s Honor Code Office.
In 2016, The Tribune reported, BYU police Lt. Aaron Rhoades regularly accessed police reports from other nearby agencies that mentioned university students. And in several sexual assault cases, The Tribune found, alleged victims who came forward to university or Provo police were later disciplined for Honor Code violations.
After that reporting — and after The Tribune launched a legal battle for records documenting police correspondence with Honor Code officials — the Legislature in 2019 made the university’s police force subject to Utah public records law.
A separate state attempt to decertify BYU police was dismissed. The campus police department told the state it would not share information with administrators moving forward, and the school pledged not to punish students who reported sexual violence.
What was recovered from Kingston’s phone?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Provo police keep an eye on a group of people gathered on the edge of the Brigham Young University campus on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.
Based on communications discovered on Kingston’s phone, detectives determined “it can be inferred” Kingston went to the woman’s St. George apartment “with the intention of having sexual intercourse,” according to charging documents.
Ellingson said BYU police were contacted a second time about the Kingston case on Feb. 11 — the same day the university and athletics learned of the allegations.
That contact came from Provo police. St. George police had asked the Provo agency to serve what was then a sealed arrest warrant for Kingston; Provo police asked BYU police for help.
Ellingson added: “BYU police assisted Provo police with serving the arrest warrant, and Kingston was taken into custody by the Provo police department without incident.”
The Tribune requested documents from the involved agencies to review the communications timeline. Those requests have so far been denied.