Last year, we published a story about former Seahawks and Buccaneers tight end Jerramy Stevens, who's known as much for being a draft bust as he is for being an all-around bad guy. Stevens played nine seasons in the NFL, but if you go to his Wikipedia entry, you'll find more details about his legal troubles than his playing career. That career can basically be summed up by Stevens's four dropped passes in Super Bowl XL, a game he pretty much guaranteed the Seahawks would win. (The photo above shows one of Stevens's Super Bowl drops.)
Our post last year was about Stevens's latest legal scrape. He was arrested for (allegedly!) breaking a bouncer's jaw at a place called Duke's Retired Surfer's Island Bar after the bouncer asked him to leave because he was being unruly. At 8 p.m. on a Thursday. Stevens is of course entitled to due process, and in the end, all of the charges against him were dropped. His attorney sent us an email this morning to tell us. Here is that email in its entirety:
Good Morning:
As a reader of your website, and also the criminal defense attorney for former NFL Player Jerramy Stevens, I wanted to pass along that the State of Florida dismissed all charges against Mr. Stevens this morning stemming from his March 3, 2011 arrest. In your article on the incident, the link is set forth below, you reported only the law enforcement version of the events from March 3, 2011. Unfortunately you did not report my version of the events, even though my version of the events were contained within the same newspaper article you linked to in your story. I realize that law enforcement's version of the events are more salacious, even funny, and thus more entertaining but they could not have been further from the truth.
To begin, I note that law enforcement officials did not intentionally put forth untruths in their report. They simply were lied to by the participants that evening. This is undisputed by prosecutors and myself. Since March 3, 2011, in depositions and other sworn testimony, the truth finally came out just as I predicted it would. On March 4, 2011 I told all of the local newspapers that reached out to me that former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Jerramy Stevens was the victim, not the aggressor, when he was arrested at Duke's Retired Surfer Bar on March 3, 2011. Further, I predicted he would be exonerated once I was allowed to present our evidence to prosecutors. And earlier this morning, in the Hillsborough County Courtroom of Judge Steven Scott Stephens, the State Attorney dismissed all charges against Mr. Stevens stemming from the events of March 3, 2011. We commend prosecutors for carefully analyzing this case.
Depositions under oath revealed undisputed facts contrary to what is set forth in the police reports. Most importantly, no witness, including the alleged two "victims", testified under oath at deposition that Mr. Stevens punched either alleged "victim". And neither of the alleged "victims" were actually even bouncers for Duke's Retired Surfer Bar. In fact, one of the alleged "victim" bouncers was actually a dockhand from the neighboring marina who had been drinking alcohol for at least an hour and a half prior to the incident. It is undisputed that this same "victim" hired a personal injury attorney days after the incident prior to even speaking to prosecutors and has had plans to sue Mr. Stevens from the start. One eyewitness in deposition stated that this "victim" referred to his jaw as the "golden jaw" to fellow workers after the incident. Another eyewitness testified that the two alleged "victims", along with another individual who works at the bar, pinned Mr. Stevens to the ground and repeatedly struck him until police arrived on scene. Unfortunately this was just the tip of the inaccuracies. This case was always about the "victim" suing Mr. Stevens. My hope is that out of fairness you will be as aggressive in covering Mr. Stevens's exoneration on October 17, 2012 as you were in covering his arrest on March 3, 2011.
To sum up, Mr. Stevens has had his share of problems but Duke's Retired Surfer Bar is not one.
Mark J. O'Brien
Attorney for Jerramy Stevens
There you go, Mark. Thanks for reaching out. We're nothing if not fair. Which is why we'd also like to remind our readers of this and this.
