DENVER -- The University of Colorado's football recruiting scandal took center stage when the CU Board of Regents held a public meeting Friday morning to discuss the allegations.

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The University of Colorado president vowed to mount an impartial investigation into whether the football program enticed recruits with alcohol-fueled sex parties that may have led to rape.

Speaking before nearly 200 people, President Elizabeth Hoffman chose two former state lawmakers, Democrat Peggy Lamm and Republican Joyce Lawrence, to co-chair the commission.

"If this independent committee comes up with lots of other incidents, that's something, then you have a pattern. It's something we need to look at very carefully," Hoffman said.

The commission must report its findings on whether "sex and alcohol are used as recruiting tools" by April 30. The regents backed the plan on a 7-2 vote, with regents Jim Martin and Cindy Carlisle dissenting.

"We have a black eye with the state of Colorado if not the country," Martin said. Martin, who said he called police after a CU booster called his cell phone with a death threat early Friday, questioned whether the university could thoroughly investigate itself.

"My goal has been to do exactly that," Hoffman replied. "My goal is independence and impartiality throughout this process."

Carlisle, whose husband is an attorney representing a woman suing CU, said neither Lamm nor Lawrence has experience dealing with violence against women.

At the meeting, parents of football players and recruits defended the football program and its head coach, Gary Barnett.

David Tufts, a parent of player Sean Tufts, said if anything inappropriate happened, he believes the athletic department was not involved. He said his son chose CU because of the integrity demonstrated by Barnett and his staff.

More Depositions Released

Friday's public meeting comes one day after nearly 3,000 pages of depositions from a lawsuit against CU were released.

The 18 depositions describe in detail the alleged sexual assault that Lisa Simpson claims happened at an off-campus party in December 2001. Simpson is one of the three women suing the school in federal court, saying they were raped at or after that party. Her sworn testimony from last August is 243 pages long.

In the deposition, she said, "The thing is, I don't know for sure who did what to me that night, so it could have been football players, it could have been recruits."

She said she fell asleep on her bed, then remembers being surrounded by unclothed men and being assaulted by at least two.

"I remember trying to get away and I crawled toward the back of the bed, and I just remember being surrounded and being scared, and I was just petrified," she said.

As for how the alleged assault affected her, she said, "When I sat down and thought about what had really happened, I realized that what had happened wasn't consensual and it wasn't OK ... it was just wrong."

That testimony is just a small fraction of what witnesses are saying in the civil lawsuit.

The depositions also have the accounts of some football players who were at that party in 2001. Their recollection of what happened was completely different, saying Simpson willingly participated in sex.

In one deposition, a football player labeled "Student A" says he lost his scholarship as a result of his participation in the party.

During the questioning a lawyer asked him, "Where did you get the condom that you put on?"

"Student A" answered, "Lisa was there, Lisa was passing them around. She had a box or some kind of container full of them and she was passing them out to everybody."

Did Coach Think His Players Were Set Up?

Former senior associate athletic director Bob Chichester said in another deposition that Barnett was upset about the possibility that sex might be arranged for high school athletes but he didn't take a strong lead in discouraging such activities.

In his deposition, Chichester said he had numerous discussions with Barnett about the school's recruiting techniques after the 2001 party. Barnett said parties for recruits occur at universities across the country.

"If (players) weren't taking (recruits) out and partying, than it would be a recruiting disadvantage," Chichester said. "We didn't specifically talk about whether sexual activity was occurring ... What we were talking about was that recruits are taken to parties and given the opportunity to participate in parties, and that there are women who will come to those parties and offer themselves to recruits."

In one conversation with the head coach, "Barnett was concerned that the recruits and hosts had been 'set up' for this to happen by the women," Chichester said.

Chichester didn't clarify whether that "set up" was believed to be for sex or for rape allegations.

Chichester said of Barnett, "He pointed out to me that he wanted to share with me that some of the recruits and hosts, some of the student athletes, were leaving, and that a woman ran out of the house and said, 'It's about to happen, don't leave yet, come on back.' And that there were allegedly condoms in bowls rather than peanuts in bowls, and coach Barnett was quite upset about that."

But if sex was arranged between the recruits and the hosts, "he (Barnett) was upset about it," Chichester said. "And if alcohol happened to be there, coach Barnett never really voiced an opinion to me that that was objectionable."

Chichester said Barnett indicated he didn't know what happened during recruiting visits.

"I felt if the head coach doesn't know what's going on with recruiting activities, he has a responsibility to know generally what's going on and to set the tone and the climate, and I didn't get a sense that coach Barnett was committed to that," Chichester said.

DA To Review Depositions To See If Charges Should Be Filed

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Keenan initially declined to file charges based on Simpson's allegations, saying the case could not be proven to a jury. But she said Thursday that investigators would review all the depositions from the civil case to determine if criminal charges should be filed.

It was Keenan's statements about the football program and athletics officials that created the firestorm involving Colorado's flagship university.

Hoffman told 7NEWS that the depositions must be considered in their totality.

"What you will find are that there is considerable differences of opinion as to what happened that night and also with respect to what we are doing in our recruiting program," Hoffman said.

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