A.J. Johnson, center, and former teammate Michael Williams appear in Knox County Criminal Court on Thursday, July 30, 2015, for a motions hearing where each is charged with four counts of aggravated rape. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

The female athlete who alleges she was raped by former University of Tennessee star linebacker A.J. Johnson and his teammate had been engaging in a sexual relationship with Johnson for "months" before the night at issue in the case, court records state.

A brief filed with the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in an appeal of a lower-court ruling in the aggravated rape case lodged against Johnson and former football player Michael Williams takes direct aim at the credibility of the pair's accuser.

It alleges the accuser had been having sex with Johnson for several months before the November 2014 party at Johnson's South Knoxville party where the alleged rape occurred, details a witness account of a "joking" interaction she had with both men after the alleged rape and accuses her and another key witness of ditching their phones and shutting down their social media accounts to hide information.

Johnson and Williams are each charged with two counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aiding and abetting the other in those aggravated rapes. They are accused of raping a female UT athlete during a drunken party at Johnson's apartment following a football victory. The ex-Vols contend the encounter was consensual and that their accuser claimed rape to protect her reputation.

The pair's trials have been put on hold, however, as defense teams for both challenge on appeal a ruling by Knox County Criminal Court Judge Bob McGee that blocked the ex-players from obtaining from witnesses, including the accuser, the contents of their digital communications, including social media messages, before, during and after the party.

McGee initially approved the defense request to obtain the information directly from the accuser and witnesses but later reversed course at the urging of prosecutors. He has since granted an appeal.

Defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson, no relation to the accused player whom he represents, contends in his appellate brief that the information sought is vital to show Johnson and Williams are innocent. In it, he states for the first time what had only been hinted at in prior hearings — the accuser, who was dating someone else, and Johnson already were sexual partners at the time of the alleged rape.

"(The accuser) and Mr. Johnson had casual sex for several months before the party," the appeal brief stated. "They also spoke online and in person from time to time."

In another attack on the credibility of the accuser's claims, attorney Johnson cited an account by another football player of seeing the accuser with Williams and Johnson after the alleged rape.

"Mr. Williams had his phone out and Mr. Johnson was jokingly giving (the accuser) a 'hard time messing around with her (about) giving (her) number to' Williams," the brief stated.

The appellate brief notes a female friend of the accuser who accompanied her to Johnson's bedroom where both Johnson and Williams had been waiting saw the accuser and Johnson having sex before the friend left the room, leaving Williams behind. She told investigators she "immediately" began texting the accuser's friends. One day after the alleged rape, both the accuser and her friend insisted their phones were malfunctioning and, within a day of each other, deleted content from those phones and sold them online in January 2015, the brief stated.

The accuser is one of eight women set to benefit from a $2.48 million settlement UT made in a federal lawsuit over the university's handling of sexual assault allegations.