Ray Rice's Attorney Presents Hypothetical Scenario That Janay Threw The 1st Blow
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Less than 48 hours after Ray Rice addressed the media about the infamous video tape that captured him dragging his wife off an elevator, Rice's attorney is now speaking out about the case.
Rochelle Ritchie has more on what the attorney had to say.
The attorney says he was never consulted about the news conference that took place Friday but says Rice's decision to speak was the right choice.
It's the TMZ video that put Rice and his then fiancee, now wife, Janay Palmer, in the spotlight of domestic violence.
"I have Janay's best interest," Rice said at the news conference.
On Friday, Rice and his wife spoke to the media for the first time about the disturbing video from the Revel Casino in Atlantic City in February, which shows Rice dragging her out of an elevator after allegedly knocking her unconscious.
Watch The Entire News Conference Below:
"I am working every day to be a better father, a better husband, and just a better role model," Rice said.
The couple was arrested, but charges against Janay were dropped. It's a common move, says attorney Byron Warnken.
"It is, in fact, fairly typical to drop the charges against the female and proceed only against the male," Warnken, warnkenlaw.com, said.
Rice's wife spoke briefly during the conference, taking some blame in the incident.
"I do deeply regret the role that I played in that incident that night," she said.
Rice's attorney, Michael Diamondstein, says he was not part of the news conference. But in an interview with 97.3 ESPN-FM he says Rice and his wife speaking out was a smart move.
"I think it puts this matter behind him so that he can move forward, not only with his NFL career, I think it was the right choice for his family as well," Diamondstein said.
Diamondstein would not say exactly what happened that night, but gave plenty of hypotheticals.
"This is just a complete hypothetical," Diamondstein said. "Let's assume, for the sake of argument, rather than enter into the pretrial diversionary program that he entered into, we hypothetically move forward on the case. Hypothetically, we litigate 100 motions, and the video comes out and the video shows — hypothetically speaking now, hypothetically speaking — shows that Ray wasn't the first person that hit and Ray was getting repeatedly hit, but just Ray hit harder, fired one back and hit harder.
"Hypothetically speaking, and he gets found not guilty, is that result somehow better? Is it better for the public? Is it better for the Ravens? Is it better for Ray? Is it better for Janay [Rice]?"
Rice has now entered a pre-trial intervention program, which keeps him from facing jail time and a criminal record. While Rice was apologetic at the press conference, he never publicly apologized to his wife.
"I just want to first apologize to Steve Bisciotti, Ozzie Newsome, and Coach Harbaugh, and um, also want to apologize to my fans," Rice said.
Rice did, however, thank his wife for being by his side throughout this entire process.Neither Rice nor his wife talked about what exactly happened that night.
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