Sources of The Baltimore Sun have revealed that Ray Rice will be meeting with NFL investigator Robert Mueller III and NFL Players Association investigator Richard Craig Smith soon. Rice will reportedly be bringing his wife Janay and defense attorney Michael Diamondstein with him during the meetings, for which dates have not yet been set. The meetings are meant to ensure convenience and transparency in the investigation of Rice’s domestic abuse case in relation to NFL matters.
In February, Rice was seen in a video hitting his then-fiancee Janay until she became unconscious in an elevator at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The incident resulted in a felony aggravated assault case against Rice, who was defended by Diamondstein. Rice was then accepted into a pretrial intervention program, which has allowed him to avoid jail time.
Ray Rice investigation will reportedly be completed by the end of October. http://t.co/xK7a7QpDqD pic.twitter.com/tDwlHKIkB8
— theScore (@theScore) October 6, 2014
The NFL suspended Rice for two games at the time for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, but after the video was made public on September 8, it suspended him indefinitely. The Baltimore Ravens also dropped Rice from his $35 million contract.
Meanwhile, the NFL recently claimed that it reached out to several law enforcement agencies between February and June in order to obtain the video for their investigation. An NFL security representative named Jim Buckley reportedly approached the Atlantic City Police Department, Atlantic County Solicitor’s Office and the New Jersey State Police for all the information they had on Rice’s case, including the video. All agencies could not give Buckley the requested information, and when he approached the court official who approved Rice’s entry into the probationary program, Buckley was only given a copy of the indictment, which had already been made public at the time.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told ABC News that the information regarding their requests for the video will be included in Mueller’s report on the NFL’s handling of Rice’s case.