VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1: We continue to follow breaking news about the firing of Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice. It comes after new video surfaces seen right here appearing to show the former Rutgers standout hitting his then fiancée inside an Atlantic City casino elevator earlier this year. The Ravens fired Rice today and NFL has suspended him indefinitely.
Speaker 2: NBC10 legal analyst Enrique Latoison joins us live from our Digital Operations Center to give us some perspective on the legal aspects of this story. Enrique, good to see you here.
Enrique Latoison: Good to see you.
Speaker 2: Rice made a deal with an Atlantic County prosecutor to avoid jail time. That was before the new elevator video was released today by TMZ. Now, given this new angle showing a more violent confrontation, is it more serious than first thought and, also, can he face additional charges?
Enrique Latoison: Well, to the general public, it is definitely more serious. He was originally charged with simple assault, then the Grand Jury convened. After they convened, they upgraded it to aggravated assault – felony aggravated assault. So you have to think that the district attorney’s office was aware of this other video that took place inside of the elevator. Now, to the general public and even myself and people I spoke with who just assume that he was not the real causation of her being laying unconscious on the ground, you might’ve thought it was alcohol or some other reason that she was laying like that. You would’ve thought there was some sort of domestic event that took place inside the elevator, but you definitely didn’t think that he sucker punched her the way this video shows, knocking her face into the, into the railing, knocking her completely unconscious.
Speaker 1: Now that this video surfaced that we’re looking at right now, looking back, should Ray Rice have been allowed to enter the pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid jail time?
Enrique Latoison: Well, the district attorney’s office, you have to look at what their policy is. Each district attorney’s office has different policies. If they typically allow aggravated assault people into the program, I mean I would say that Mr. Rice should not be treated any differently than anyone else. Just because he’s a football player, he should not be singled out and he should not be treated differently. The program he has to take counseling, he has to take anger management, he has to stay out of trouble. He’s never been in trouble before. The district attorney’s office consider all of those facts. You also have to remember the victim, in this case, married the defendant shortly after this assault and she also stood by him in the press conferences and she didn’t want to prosecute. District attorney’s office might’ve taken the best out of a bad situation and in that particular situation, they allowed him into this program because that was the best they could’ve done under the circumstances and he should not be treated differently than anyone else.
Speaker 2: All right. NBC10 legal analyst, Enrique Latoison, thank you so much for joining us.
Enrique Latoison: Thank you.
Contact Enrique Latoison
(610) 999-1439