Law Enforcement Official: We Sent The Ray Rice Tape To The NFL

A law enforcement official tells AP he mailed a copy of the inside-elevator video showing Ray Rice punching out his then-fiancée to the NFL's security chief, Jeffrey Miller, back in April.

That's a followup to their report t wo weeks ago that the video had been sent to an "NFL executive." The AP's unnamed law enforcement official says he sent the video anonymously, with a note attached that read "Ray Rice elevator video. You have to see it. It's terrible."

Roger Goodell has maintained nobody in the NFL saw the elevator video before TMZ released it publicly, and the league stuck to that story Thursday. Miller's statement to the Associated Press via an NFL spokesperson:

I unequivocally deny that I received at any time a copy of the video, and I had not watched it until it was made public on September 8.

The law enforcement official wasn't authorized to send the video to Miller, and said the NFL never asked him for it, but did so as a professional courtesy to a former law enforcement officer so that the NFL could see the video before deciding upon Rice's punishment. He also provided Miller the number for a burner cellphone and asked for confirmation that the video was received, which he got in the form of a 12 second voicemail from an NFL office number who, we're told, agreed with the note: "You're right. It's terrible."

[ AP]

Photo credit: Patrick Semansky/AP