Ray Rice, Wife and Attorney to Face NFL and NFLPA Officers

The suspended Ravens running back, Ray Rice, his wife Janay and his lawyer,Michael Diamondstein, are scheduled to appear before investigators from NFL and NFL Players Association. NFL will be represented by Robert Mueller III while NFLPA will be represented by Richard Craig Smith.

An insider told Baltimore Sun that the couple will be grilled individually. Though the dates are yet to be fixed, the investigators cited convenience and good transparency as the reasons for separate questioning. Ray’s case has been experiencing delay due to other cases involving fellow NFL players.

Other cases that are in the pipeline include Greg Hardy and Carolina Panthers and Adrian Peterson. Ravens Kicker, Matt Stover, has already been grilled by NFL officials due to indiscipline. Greg’s case is due to wife battery while Matt is in for alleged child abuse.

Ray owes his freedom to his lawyer Diamondstein who defended him when he was charged for beating his girlfriend in February. The suspended running back was accused of beating his girlfriend Janey as they were leaving one of the casinos in Atlantic city, New Jersey. Ray has since been enrolled in the pretrial program.

Ray has hired lawyer Peter Ginsberg to defend him against NFL officials. The lawyer has actually been hired in the past by renowned sportsmen including Michael Irvin who used to play for Dallas Cowboys. Other players include Vijay Singh and Dezz Wells.

Ray was banned from participating in two games after he was found to have gone against NFL’s personal conduct policy. The player was seen on CCTV camera battering his girlfriend inside a lift after walking out of a casino in New Jersey. The ban was actually pushed to an unspecified date to buy time for investigations to be completed.

NFL and NFLPA are conducting independent investigations on the player’s case. Prior to the ban, Ray had landed a $35 million deal that has since been canceled. Since his lawyers have filed for appeal, they will base their defense on article 47 which states that an offender can only be punished once.