her head and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. He was subsequently suspended indefinitely from the Iowa Hawkeyes by athletic department officials, which was atypical, as the school usually waits for the legal process to play out before making a decision, but the school took swift action because of the severity of the charge. To avoid imprisonment, Pierce pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge of assault causing injury in a sexual assault. He received no jail time, but received a deferred judgment, so the charge was erased from his record after he successfully completed a year of probation, counseling and 200 hours of community service, the requirements of the plea agreement. He later apologized publicly for engaging in "inappropriate sexual conduct with a fellow student." Pierce sat out the 2002–03 season after his plea bargain but took it as a redshirt year to avoid losing it as a year of eligibility. Because there were many people upset over Pierce being allowed to remain on the team and keep his scholarship, two petitions totaling over 3,000 signatures were filed protesting the circumstances of the school's handling of the case. A petition started by a law school student had 1,873 signatures, while the university's Women's Resource and Action Center collected 1,230. Amid resolutions urging students to boycott the men's basketball games, the petition had urged season ticket holders to ask the athletic department for a refund or to transfer their tickets to another athletic team, actions Pierce's attorney Alfredo Parrish labeled "absolutely ridiculous" because "[they] don't know the facts" before "[reaching] a conclusion." Pierce spent that season working on improving his game while he was not competing. Pierce was back in uniform with the team in August 2003, in a return for the 2003–04 season, in which he led the Hawkeyes on a five-game tour of Australia. In those games, he averaged 20.8 points a game on better than 50-percent shooting, and almost 5 rebounds per game. 2005 charges and imprisonment On January 27, 2005, a disturbance was investigated at the West Des Moines home of a woman Pierce had been dating for 2½ years. He allegedly choked her, threatened her with a knife and stripped her after an argument over her new boyfriend. Pierce was also accused of causing damage to her apartment and stealing a laptop and camera. After police confirmed Pierce was the focus of their