Talk about a life ruining nightmare. Ashe Schow of the Washington Examiner reports.

Student accused of sexual assault: Like being at the ‘bottom of this pit’

Joshua Strange was accused of sexual assault in 2011 by an ex-girlfriend and expelled from Auburn University. Since then, he’s told his story numerous times, but hasn’t really focused on the emotional toll the situation took on him.

Strange, speaking on a panel of due process advocates in March at the National Press Club, described what it felt like when his “world came crashing down.”

“When the accusation came across to me and [Auburn] told me about it, it was as if I had somehow wound up at the bottom of this pit,” Strange said. “And all around you is just darkness – it’s just completely black, except for the light of one match that’s in your hand and that match is burning.”

“And that’s all you can see. And it’s just you by yourself – cold, dark and alone,” he added. “You’re trying to figure out where to go next, and you’re trying to put one foot in front of the other, just trying to go day to day and make it through, and just somehow find the light at the end of the tunnel. And that’s how it went. That was the world that I lived in.”

One night in 2011, Strange and his girlfriend of a month were at his apartment when he claims she initiated a sexual encounter but shortly in began to say “no.” After he stopped and left the room, she called the police, who arrested Strange but released him a few hours later. Strange says his girlfriend apologized profusely for the episode and they continued dating for nearly two more months.

A month after they broke up, the now ex-girlfriend accused Strange of attacking her in a parking lot, although he says he had witnesses placing him miles away at the time.

Nevertheless, the girl had him arrested again, and this time she went to campus administrators to bring up the previous sexual encounter, now claiming that Strange raped her.