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Ex-Falcon Charged With Sexually Assaulting 12-Year-Old Girl

COLUMBUS, GA -- Justin Crawford, a former Georgia high school standout football player who signed briefly with the Atlanta Falcons earlier this season, was arrested Saturday in Columbus on charges that he allegedly had sex with a 12-year-old girl.

Crawford played running back at Hardaway High School in Columbus and then at West Virginia University. He is now facing charges of incest, sodomy and enticing a child for indecent purposes, according to Muscogee County jail records.

Crawford is being held without bond in the Muscogee County Jail, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. During a Monday preliminary hearing, police said Crawford's wife, Chakeya, woke up Saturday around 5 a.m. and walked into her living room to find her husband with an erection as he stood over the child.

Later, however, Crawford'w wife told the paper she said her husband's penis was exposed but not erect. She said she confronted her husband about it, that he denied any wrongdoing and she decided to go back to bed.

The child told her mother she had been asleep in the living room when Crawford came in and had her perform oral sex on him before they had intercourse, police said.

Read the Ledger-Enquirer's story here.

The child was taken for a medical exam, police said. Crawford initially denied any sexual contact with the girl to police, but later admitted to having oral sex and intercourse with her but claimed it was her idea.

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