Trans San Jose State women’s volleyball player accused of planning to intentionally throw match to harm own teammate

The 132-page court filing with the US District Court for the District of Colorado, alleges at one point that Fleming and others had schemed to throw an October game and have a fellow teammate injured during the match.

The lawsuit cited San Jose State volleyball player Chandler Manusky, who alleged that she snuck out the night before the October 3 game against Colorado State University, Fort Collins (CSU-FC) against team rules with Fleming and fellow SJSU team member Randilyn Reeves to meet with CSU-FC team member Malaya Jones at her residence.

Manusky told her some of her teammates after arriving back at campus that at Jones’ residence Fleming had shared with Jones "the scouting for the CSU-FC game" and that they had discussed "throw[ing] the game." Manusky said that they had also discussed how to set up Jones to "blow up" player Brooke Slusser during the game and "blast" her in the face. Fleming allegedly said "I’m going to leave center court open," which would allow Jones to have the shop to "blow up Slusser."

The night before the October 3 game, a teammate of Slusser received a message on social media that stated, "please distance yourself from brooke. tomorrow at the game, it will not be good for her," the lawsuit stated.

During the October 3 game, Fleming "had by far the worst game of the season, but it was not just that Fleming was not playing well, Fleming was repeatedly out of position throughout the game" to block the hitter on the opposing team, the lawsuit stated.

Associate head volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, who has since been suspended, said that she saw Fleming wink at Jones on several occasions during the game on occasions when Fleming did not go to the net to block, and that Fleming was ignoring Batie-Smoose’s communications during the game.

"It was clear to Batie-Smoose that Fleming was intentionally not blocking and was ignoring Batie-Smoose and the SJSU Team’s gameplan." Batie-Smoose brought the concerns to Kress, who kept Fleming in the game.

The game marked the team’s first loss in the season.

Manusky brought the matter to Batie-Smoose and Coach Todd Kress, with the latter stating that he didn’t believe Makusky and that she had made up the story to not get in trouble for leaving the hotel. Batie-Smoose said that Kress’ explaination made "no sense," and that the player’s recollection lined up with what she had witnessed at the game, neither Batie-Smoose nor Kress knew that Manusky had left the hotel until she said so, and also noted that the timeline of when the threatening message was sent lined up with the events.

In a statement to Fox News, SJSU said, "We have not been served with the lawsuit. We just obtained a copy of the 132-page document at 3:58 pm. We will not comment at this time."

Slusser told the outlet, "If this was me, and I was the one threatening to do this to my teammate who's caused so much commotion, there would have been action taken immediately. I was definitely very angry, and I was glad at first to know that it was already made aware to the coaching staff and compliance and everyone, but I don't know if that made me feel any differently, I was just angry because I didn't think someone would go to these lengths."

"Threatening to want to hurt one of your own teammates, I just feel like there's so many things in that whole conversation that would make a school want to get it dealt with."

The lawsuit stated that Batie-Smoose thought "the report by Manusky was serious and there was sufficient corroboration and plausibility to it that there should have been an effort by SJSU to immediately get this information to law enforcement and to conduct a robust investigation, but Batie-Smoose does not believe this occurred."