The state attorney in Florida's seventh judicial circuit has decided not to prosecute Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew for his alleged role in a bar fight in which a bouncer was knocked out with a single punch.
The attorney for Kasim Howard, the bouncer who had been KO'd, had said surveillance footage would prove Jones-Drew threw the fateful punch. But in a statement first obtained by Jacksonville's WJTX, the state attorney said the evidence was not enough to warrant filing charges:
"Based on the facts and the law, the state cannot establish the charge beyond and to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt," the state attorney's office said.
[...]
According to a letter from Jones-Drew's attorney, Hank Coxe, to the state attorney's office, the video does not conclusively show who punched Howard. It also says Howard was apparently not wearing a shirt that identified him as security.
In the days after the incident, which took place Memorial Day weekend, police in St. Augustine, Fla., initially said Jones-Drew had been charged with one count of misdemeanor battery, only to clarify later that it had simply taken a victim's statement. The cops' clarification also said Jones-Drew had been "cooperating fully." Police wrapped up their investigation and sent the case to the state attorney's office on June 7.
Coxe, Jones-Drew's attorney, intends to release the video, according to WJXT's Vic Micolucci. Coxe has also accused the bar, the Conch House, of trying to sell the video to TMZ.
[News4Jax]
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