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New England Patriots safety Jabrill Peppers was put on the NFL’s commissioner exempt list this week after pleading not guilty on Monday to charges of assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, strangulation and possession of a Class B substance which police said tested positive for cocaine.
On Friday, team owner Robert Kraft said the team was conducting its own investigation into the matter.
“[The NFL will] do their independent checking. We’re doing ours,” he said during an appearance on The Breakfast Club [46:00 mark]. “If what was reported is true, he’s gone. There have been some suggestions this was a setup and what’s reported is not accurate.”
A woman told police in Braintree, Massachusetts, that Peppers hit her, shoved her to the ground, shoved her against a wall, choked her six different times, stripped her of her clothing and forced her outside, per ESPN’s Mike Reiss.
Peppers’ attorney, Marc Brofsky, said in court that the defense had evidence that “sheds real doubt on the allegations, including videotaped evidence.”
Peppers was released from jail on $2,500 bond and ordered to not have contact with the woman. He did not resist arrest and cooperated with police.
“I have a saying that I use to all my key people: In important decision in life, you measure nine times and you cut once,” Kraft said Friday. “And I think in this case, if what’s been reported is true, he’s gone. But we want to get the facts.”
“The easiest thing would have been to cut him right away but we’re trying to measure nine times and do right by him,” he added. “If the facts are as has been reported publicly, then he’s not with us.”
After Peppers was placed on the commissioner’s list, head coach Jerod Mayo told reporters that any form of domestic violence is “unacceptable for us as a team” and that the organization is “wholeheartedly against any type of domestic violence.”
“With that being said, I do think that Jabrill has to continue to go through due process,” he added. “We’ll see how that works out. The league has put him on the exempt list, and that will give us time to gather more information going forward. At this time, he is not in the building and we’ll talk about that at a later time. As a father of three daughters, I definitely understand the seriousness of the allegations and hopefully they’re not true.”
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