Former USU lineman Kingsley Holliday, accused of rape, pleads guilty to sexual battery
Oct 6, 2025, 5:00 AM
A welcome sign for Utah State University is pictured on May 18, 2023. (Ryan Sun, Deseret News)
(Ryan Sun, Deseret News)
LOGAN — A former Utah State University offensive lineman accused of raping a woman after a music festival pleaded guilty this week to sexual battery charges.
Kingsley Holliday, 25, of Draper, was charged in 1st District Court with aggravated kidnapping, rape and forcible sodomy, all first-degree felonies, and obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony.
On Tuesday, Holliday pleaded no contest to reduced charges of two counts of aggravated assault, a second-degree felony, and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony, and three counts of sexual battery, a class A misdemeanor. He also submitted a separate no contest plea to a second-degree felony sexual abuse charge that will be held in abeyance for a period of 36 months.
According to the plea agreement, Holliday will be on the sex offender registry during the period of abeyance. Once the plea is withdrawn after the abeyance period, the state agreed the forcible sexual abuse charge will be dismissed and he can be removed from the registry.
The agreement stipulates Holliday will serve an additional nine months in the Cache County Jail, where he has already been in custody for more than two years. Holliday said in the plea agreement he agrees to a 48-month term of probation with zero tolerance and no early termination and will complete any recommended treatment from a psychosexual evaluation.
On Sept. 3, 2022, the North Park Police Department responded to a woman in the emergency room reporting a rape. She told police that she was forcibly pulled away from an event venue by a man she didn’t know and was dragged to a private property.
The woman told police she was raped by the man at the private property, and she received injuries during the incident, according to a police booking affidavit. Witnesses placed Holliday at the event near the victim, and DNA evidence collected matched Holliday, police said.
When Holliday was taken into custody and interviewed, police say he “denied any involvement” but expressed concern that the woman might be pregnant, the affidavit states.
In his plea statement, Holliday admitted “without consent, I took indecent liberties,” used “unlawful force or violence” and “provided false information regarding a material aspect of that investigation.”
“I was dancing at a music festival. I met another person and left the festival with intent to engage in sexual activities outside the festival. This person claims that I did not have her consent to engage in such sexual activities and I do not contest that fact for purposes of this plea,” he said in the plea statement.
