Club Manager: Big Ben's bodyguard denied entrance to bathroom

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The manager of the club where Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is accused of having sexually assaulted a 20-year-old Georgia woman said Thursday one of the woman's friends told him a bodyguard of Roethlisberger's had denied her entrance to the area leading to the bathroom where she believed the accuser and Roethlisberger were that night.

The accuser told police later that night that Roethlisberger had assaulted her in the club's bathroom.

Rocky Duncan, the manager of Capital City bar in Milledgeville, Ga., said Roethlisberger and his entourage of "about nine" people, not including the accuser or her friends, arrived at the bar at approximately 1:10 a.m. Duncan said a member of Roethlisberger's group had asked for VIP seating in a private section of the club and a bouncer from the club to be stationed outside the area. Duncan recalled that the Roethlisberger friend said, "We want the girls [to be allowed back into that section]."

Duncan said he escorted Rothlisberger and his group into the back room of the club, sealed off by a curtain, that serves as the VIP area. A bouncer stationed outside the curtain allowed women into the VIP area.

Later in the evening, according to Duncan, most of Roethlisberger's group had wandered from the VIP area to a larger room that opens up off of it -- a room also closed to the general public. Duncan said there were about 25 people in that area, called "the stage room."

Duncan said he saw Roethlisberger standing and talking with what appeared to be a woman sitting on a stool a few feet from the bathroom door, which was separated from the stage room by a 4-foot divider. Roethlisberger's frame blocked Duncan from seeing the woman. But Duncan added he had never seen the accuser and did not know what she looked like. Duncan said a member of Roethlisberger's entourage, whom he called "the ringleader," was sitting on a stool about a foot away from the door that led to the area where Roethlisberger and the woman had been talking.

Approximately 30 seconds after he saw Roethlisberger talking to the woman, Duncan said one of the accuser's friends approached Duncan and said, "I think my friend is in the bathroom with Ben, but the door [leading to the bathroom area] is locked, and I'm trying to get back there, and this guy wouldn't let me through." Duncan said she also told him, "I think my friend may be drunk."

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