Report: Ezekiel Elliott Will Appeal Suspension, Play Up Allegation That Accuser Harassed Him

Ezekiel Elliott reportedly will appeal his six-game suspension this week, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, with plans to build his case on the idea that the league did not do enough to consider the credibility of the woman who said he repeatedly hit her, Tiffany Thompson. That argument will include the fact that Elliott said he was harassed by Thompson in a police incident report he filed last year.

Thompson, Elliott’s ex-girlfriend, accused him of domestic violence last July. Prosecutors in Columbus, Ohio, investigated and declined to press charges, citing “conflicting and inconsistent information across all incidents resulting in concern regarding the sufficiency of the evidence.” One witness told prosecutors that Thompson had asked her to lie to police about the alleged assault and provided text messages that appeared to show as much. Principal assistant city attorney Robert S. Tobias later told , “I personally believe that there were a series of interactions between Mr. Elliott and (his accuser) where violence occurred. However, given the totality of the circumstances, I could not firmly conclude exactly what happened.”

Today, NFL Network reported that Elliott filed a report with police in Texas in September, while the Columbus investigation was ongoing. Per Rapoport, Elliott told Frisco police that Thompson had called him more than 50 times in less than eight hours. Elliott told them that he picked up the phone several times and told her that she was not supposed to be calling him, but she continued to call, including at least once from a blocked number. Elliiott also claimed Thompson hacked into his email and called phone numbers that she found in his account to share “untruthful things” to “hurt his image,” according to the NFL Network report.

Two days later, Columbus police announced that charges would not be filed. Tobias declined to comment on it to NFL Network, and the police report was not a part of the records released last year by the prosecutor’s office. The league was aware of the Frisco incident report while determining the length of Elliott’s suspension, per Rapoport, but the running back feels that it—and other factors that, in his eyes, should undermine Thompson’s credibility—were not weighted heavily enough.