Riot Games has announced a six-month suspension for professional Valorant player Jay “Sinatraa” Won for failing to cooperate with an ongoing sexual assault investigation.
Alex Francois, the Head of Competitive Operations for Valorant Esports, shared the ruling in a new update on May 18. He said that Won’s suspension stems from his failure to fully cooperate with Riot Games’s investigations into his alleged sexual assault of former girlfriend Cleo Hernandez.
The investigation required Won to submit audio and video files that had reportedly been recorded consensually over the course of the relationship. In a statement from Won in March, the Valorant player had agreed to hand over the evidence, but has seemingly failed to do so, according to Riot. Won, meanwhile, claims that he does not own the files in question.
Francois noted that while the investigation “did not come to a definitive conclusion”, the Competitive Operations team that was reviewing the case “had serious concerns with Sinatraa’s conduct during the course of the investigation”.
“It was determined that on at least two occasions Sinatraa misrepresented certain facts, made false statements, and did not cooperate with the investigation in a way expected of a professional Valorant esports player,” Francois wrote. “Of note, Sinatraa’s public commitment on social media to provide the full audio and video clip referenced in the original post was never fulfilled.”
Riot has also said that the matter has been “referred to law enforcement”, and that the appropriate authorities will “make further investigation into and factual findings related to the allegations”.
Won will be able to return to competitive gaming following the conclusion of his suspension on September 10, and will be eligible to return for the Last Chance Qualifiers and Champions tournaments. However, he will also have to “complete professional conduct training prior to being able to return to play”.
Following Riot’s announcement, Won issued a statement on Twitter where he alleged that he no longer owns the video and audio evidence in question. “After our relationship ended [Hernandez] had asked me to delete the video and I honored that,” he wrote.
“As we were drafting up an update with the legal PR team we had added that I would provide the video because we genuinely thought that the video would have to be shared in full since it’s a key part in the investigation,” Won added. “However that did not happen and I should not have promised something I could not personally deliver.”
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