Super Smash Bros. player SamHalen (@SenranSam) came forward with evidence on Sunday regarding sexual assault allegations that had been spread amongst the Fighting Game Community.
On March 18, 2024 police responded to the Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey. The police had been called by event coordinator Cyrus Gharakhanian (Cagt). According to the police report, Cagt had called on behalf of the alleged victim Kendra Webb, who had reported being sexually assaulted by SamHalen at the bar of the hotel.
Kendra had reportedly identified the suspect as a “tall Welsh male with blonde hair” which led them to Sam. According to Kendra, Sam had started grabbing her, putting his hands on her rear and chest in a sexual manner and even put his fingers in her mouth. When approached by police to provide his side of the story, Sam reportedly went with police voluntarily to answer questions at the police station. You can find what Sam’s recent statement, along with screencaps of the police report below..
I went on vacation to the United States of America. Went to a smash bros event called Collision, had fun, but the last night there was absolutely shocking, some low life’s orchestrated a sexual allegation set up. This is the evil you contend with in the world today. pic.twitter.com/VEJN9Ef3Gl
— SamHalen (@SenranSam) March 31, 2024
Sam’s compliance with the police investigation was later interpreted by Cagt as the police “took him away” and in a statement on Discord to the community announced that Sam would be banned from future events, likely assuming he had been arrested.
Ultimately, police checked the camera footage in the Sheraton hotel around the time of the alleged incident and found “The surveillance only shows Samuel hug Kendra as she first arrives at the table. The surveillance did not show Samuel touching Kendra in any inappropriate ways.”
At the time of writing, neither Cagt or Collision have released a statement regarding the police report released to the public by Sam.
While Collision has been silent, Sam has been unbanned by his home region of Wales and Bristol. You can check out the public apology from organizers below.
Sam’s final statement calls for accountability of those involved, saying:
“I want justice, these people need to be made examples of. They should all get banned for their false allegations towards me. I got banned and did nothing wrong… let’s see how this plays out with the right information in place. I’ll be watching…”
