Maybe Ray Rice's lawyer was just mad that Rice didn't consult him about addressing the media. Or maybe his lawyer didn't really say anything.
Ray Rice refuses to wait for John Harbaugh to address media about domestic violence charge
It wasn't anything good.
The Baltimore Sun reported that Philadelphia lawyer Michael Diamondstein went on an ESPN-affiliated radio station in New Jersey and gave a bizarre hypothetical explanation about the night Rice and his then-fiancée Janay Palmer engaged in a physical altercation at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, N.J.
Diamondstein was trying to explain why the Baltimore Ravens running back opted to enter a pretrial diversion to avoid jail time, rather than go to court where Diamondstein said he was confident Rice would be found innocent of domestic violence.
Ray Rice agrees to pretrial diversion program to have domestic violence charge erased
"This is just a complete hypothetical," Diamondstein said to the station, as reported by the Baltimore Sun. "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)?"
Diamondstein also was hinting that Rice was taking some heat for his plea bargain to have the charge dismissed from his record.
"I don't think the fact that he entered into a pretrial diversionary program should be something that anybody looks at negatively," Diamondstein said. "There was an issue between him and his wife that night; he's accepted responsibility for his role in it. He's a good person. He's a good player."
If Rice is suffering in the court of public opinion over his agreement, his lawyer certainly didn't help in that matter. Even if Diamondstein really was speaking hypothetically and the circumstances didn't actually take place as he described, he appeared to suggest that watching the rest of the video involving Rice might make Rice look worse than he did in the original video that TMZ Sports broke.
Rice also is being criticized for not apologizing to Janay during the interview. Diamondstein was asked why Janay Rice appeared alongside her husband during the news conference.
"I really can't answer that question. Not trying to be short with you," Diamondstein said. "That press conference is something that was done with Ray and Janay and the Ravens. I wasn't a part of that."
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