Inconsistencies in Goodell’s Testimony in Ray Rice Hearing Highlighted in Transcripts

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has long maintained that the league office asked for any information pertinent to the Ray Rice elevator incident, including video from inside the elevator that showed Rice striking his then-fiancee Janay Palmer.

But the transcript of the Rice’s appeal hearing, overseen by former federal judge Barbara S. Jones and resulted in Rice he won overturning his indefinite suspension on November 28, has been acquired by ESPN’s Outside The Lines. The transcript shows some discrepancies between Goodell’s statements about the level of effort of the league office to get the video tape and what internal communications in the office revealed about the process to get the tape, or lack thereof (via ESPN’s Don Van Natta):

In early September, amid an intensifying, national furor over his discipline of former star Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell tried to assuage the league’s fans, concerned politicians, outraged domestic violence advocates, and team owners.

The league, he told a national television audience on Sept. 9, would have been harder on Rice had its investigators obtained a full video recording of Rice assaulting his then-fiancee in a casino elevator. Goodell’s investigators had asked four law enforcement agencies “for the video, we asked for anything that was pertinent, but we were never granted that opportunity.”

On Sept. 10, Goodell wrote a memo to all 32 team owners — his bosses — and said the same, assuring them that “on multiple occasions, we asked the proper law enforcement authorities to share with us all relevant information, including any video of the incident.” He cited the “New Jersey State Police, the Atlantic City Police Department, the Atlantic County Police Department and the Atlantic County Solicitor’s Office.”

But one day before Goodell sent that memo, the league’s lead investigator on the Rice matter had actually told the league’s director of security that he had never requested the inside-casino elevator video from the one law enforcement agency that actually had it, the Atlantic City Police Department: “Again, I never spoke to anyone at the casino or the police department about the tape,” NFL investigator Jim Buckley wrote in a Sept. 9 email to NFL executive vice president and chief security officer Jeffrey B. Miller. The last e-mail on the chain from Buckley says: “I never contacted anyone about the tape.”

The exchange is contained in a 631-page transcript of the Ray Rice suspension-appeal hearing heard in early November, a copy of which was obtained by “Outside the Lines.” The arbitrator, former federal judge Barbara S. Jones, heard from eight witnesses before overturning Rice’s indefinite suspension on Nov. 28, finding that Goodell’s suspension of Rice on Sept. 8 was “arbitrary” and “an abuse of discretion” and that Rice had never misrepresented to Goodell and other league officials what had occurred on Feb. 15 at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. “The commissioner needed to be fair and consistent in his imposition of discipline,” Jones wrote.

On the first day of the Rice appeal hearing, November 5, Goodell testified under oath, but was not revealing about the specificity of the requests to get the video tape:

One of those contradictions came during questioning from NFL Players Association lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, who pressed Goodell on what he knew about his investigators’ attempts to obtain the inside-elevator video.

Kessler: “… you said, ‘we asked for it on several occasions according to our security department. We went through it, we asked for it on several occasions over the spring, all the way through June.’ You see that statement? Did you make a comment like that?”

Goodell: “Yes, I remember that.”

Kessler: “Did you ever learn before or after that that in fact no formal request was made for videos about your security department of the police department who had it is that in fact they never made such a formal request?”

Goodell: “[What] does a formal request mean?”

Kessler: “Are you aware that there [are] laws in the State of New Jersey where people can file formal requests for information from the police department?”

Goodell: “I’m not an attorney.”

Kessler: “Let me just say, is it your understanding when you made your second decision that your people had done whatever formal means they could to get the first video or not? Do you have any understanding of that one way or the other?”

Goodell: “I had an understanding they had asked for any information that would be pertinent to this case. It would be helpful to us and we’d get a very limited amount of information. I think what’s mentioned in the indictment and the pre-trial intervention there may have been other information.”

Kessler: “Would it have affected your determination if you had seen an e-mail in which the security person responsible said I never specifically made a formal request of the police department for any tapes, would that have affected your determination at all if you had that information?”

Goodell: “As I said before, I don’t know what you mean by formal, but I know they requested the tape.”

The NFL’s attorney at this point objected to the line of questioning, and the judge agreed to stop it, but Kessler persisted.

Kessler: “So on September 9th, Mr. Buckley writes to Mr. Miller, ‘again, I never spoke to anyone from the casino or police department about the tape.’ Okay. What I’m going to ask you, did you ever become aware prior to imposing your second discipline that security people had not really spoken to the police department or the casino about getting the inside the elevator tape?”

Goodell: “I wasn’t aware of the fact that they tried to get it from law enforcement. I do not know the specifics.”

In a statement, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Wednesday that “the transcript and entire proceeding, other than her final decision, were subject to a confidentiality order signed by Judge Jones. We will continue to respect the process”. NFLPA spokesman George Atallah declined comment.

Reaction to the story on social media has been very anti-Goodell:

With the independent investigation of the league’s handling of the Rice matter by former FBI Director Robert Mueller still to be completed, the last chapter of the ramifications for the league and Goodell has yet to be written.

 

 

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