Lions Patricia Indicted for Sexual Assault in '96

[Soko]

3 hours ago, Joe said:

I can't stop asking myself the question: "why now?" Something's fishy here and I don't think Patricia deserves this...

In all fairness, I believe it was a reporter that asked the Lions FO. Not like the victim came out of the woodwork after hearing Patricia is a HC now.

[DontTazeMeBro]

After McDaniels backed out of the Indy job I made a joke about belichick blackmailing him. Then the coordinator that did leave has this come out 

[Superman(DH23)]

18 hours ago, TheKillerNacho said:

" The case never went to trial after, according to authorities, the victim decided not to testify due to feeling she could not “face the pressures or stress of a trial.” - Deadspin https://deadspin.com/we-found-matt-patricia-s-sexual-assault-indictment-in-3-1825909467

I am guilty of some conjecture, sure, but tbh its the natural consequence of this statement in combination with the grand jury inditement.

Of course now you are guilty of some conjecture here. All we know for sure is she didn't want to testify.

The indictment is not that impressive.  There is an old saying with lawyers that an ape could get an indictment.  The only thing the grand jury hears is the prosecution's case, and the standard is probable cause.  Meaning the prosecutor just has to show that their is a 50% probability or better that something may have happened.  In this instance that very well could have been just the alleged victims statement to the police.  Thats a long way from beyond a reasonable doubt.  The indictment means absolutely nothing as far as how strong or weak the prosecutions case was.

Also keep in mind 22 years ago we were telling college kids that regrettable drunk sex was rape.  

[TheKillerNacho]

1 hour ago, Superman(DH23) said:

The indictment is not that impressive.  There is an old saying with lawyers that an ape could get an indictment.  The only thing the grand jury hears is the prosecution's case, and the standard is probable cause.  Meaning the prosecutor just has to show that their is a 50% probability or better that something may have happened.  In this instance that very well could have been just the alleged victims statement to the police.  Thats a long way from beyond a reasonable doubt.  The indictment means absolutely nothing as far as how strong or weak the prosecutions case was.

I agree? I don't believe my statement said otherwise, so I'm unsure what you're responding to. The police report itself says it would've likely went to trial if the victim was willing to testify. The indictment is just the first formal step to begin that process. This implies to me that the prosecution thought they had a decent chance at winning, at least with the victim's testimony.

For the record I'm not concluding either way about Patricia's actual guilt or innocence. Truth is, I don't know.

Also, "more likely than not" is also the standard of the court of public opinion, and the standard of the NFL. While there is no doubt Patricia will not be facing criminal charges, the NFL may take action anyway with how big this story has gotten, in combination with the social .. atmosphere. The  NFL already said they are reviewing the matter.

[TXsteeler]

Based on the known facts of this story, the NFL/Lions should investigate further but until anything more comes of it, everyone should just assume nothing happened.Nobody has any way of knowing what happened one way or the other. To be honest, the only difference between Patricia and any other man is that he had a woman accuse him of this, it could be true or it could be a lie. But any guy you know could be equally as likely to have sexually assaulted a woman and gotten away with it, the one thing that links most of these recent celebrities being accused of sexual assaults and rapes is that they did it many times. For now, he's fine. If he has 5 more women come out soon, he's screwed. The story coming out now isn't suspicious either , it came from a reporter trying to get clicks on a website, not a woman trying to get some of that sweet settlement money, and she hasn't even commented on the story yet.

[SimbaWho]

Huh, well, disturbing for sure to read about. Are they completely true, etc, who really knows. REAL Gray area for sure but we live in a society that says innocent till proven guilty so I WILL give him the benefit of the doubt.

Unbelievable that this story comes out now, and what's unknown to most is when the DET journalist tried to contract the women about this story she didn't want to talk about it... (again), so it's either A. Not true, B. Too Traumatic still to talk about, C. Somewhere in-between maybe? But basically my point is if she still doesn't want to talk about it why would you write the story still about her, highlighting it in a national way? Very disrespectful to her feelings. To me it's a disturbing story, and a agenda driven story for someone making a name for themselves. 

I wonder if this had come out before his hire would the Lions, or other teams consider hiring him as a head coach still? That's that sad part. I run a business with young women around and I can confidently say I'd hire someone without these concerns with the same credentials vs someone with these concerns if I knew about them without specifically saying that's why they're not hired...

[TheKillerNacho]

2 hours ago, SimbaWho said:

 (again), so it's either A. Not true, B. Too Traumatic still to talk about, C. Somewhere in-between maybe?

Or, D) It was 20 years ago, and she doesn't want to be in the public eye where she will probably be continuously berated, and just wants to get on with her life?

I agree everyone should be respecting her privacy, though.

[BleedTheClock]

On 5/10/2018 at 12:25 AM, Sugashane said:

In all fairness, Cooter has a rather checkered past with this kind of thing. DET hired him, now they are together though, just bizarre.

I heard his name was Steve Adams initially, but as part of the settlement, he had to change his name to Jim Bob Cooter. Any truth to this rumor?

[DLF54927]

Odd that that many people involved wouldn't remember a thing about the case unless there wasn't much meat on the bone.

I'm guessing they had zero evidence outside of the alleged's statement.   

Also, someone did this to hurt Patricia.  It's a nothing burger dressed up as Wagyu in today's social climate.

 

[SimbaWho]

1 hour ago, TheKillerNacho said:

Or, D) It was 20 years ago, and she doesn't want to be in the public eye where she will probably be continuously berated, and just wants to get on with her life?

I agree everyone should be respecting her privacy, though.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't say it like that but that's what I meant by being too traumatic.

We're all here saying what we think about Patricia and this women when it seems like to me, all this women wants at this point is the attention, story, situation, to completely go away and move on with her life. Sad this was brought up all the way around imo, from both sides. (*Unless of coarse they're true then... Light does need to be shed on Patricia. )

[sp6488]

23 hours ago, Gopackgonerd said:

Sexual assault is a horrific thing to do to someone, but yeah 22 years ago, that's a long time ago. Now if this was murder it would be a different story.

Either way, I am pretty uncomfortable holding non-convictions (even more, things that never went to trial) against someone.  That sort of cuts against every concept of justice and one's relationship with the law in Western society.

[Soko]

10 hours ago, TheKillerNacho said:

While there is no doubt Patricia will not be facing criminal charges, the NFL may take action anyway with how big this story has gotten, in combination with the social .. atmosphere. The  NFL already said they are reviewing the matter.

I posted this earlier in the thread, but to my knowledge the NFL has no current rule or policy that they could penalize him under. The “conduct detrimental” piece does not include incidents that happened before NFL employment, AFAIK. If this were to be the case, I imagine there’d be quite a few players and coaches that broke the conduct policy. 

Also, it sets a pretty dangerous precedent if the league decides to act on this. I’m assuming that the crux of the prosecution’s case rested on the victim’s testimony (as many domestic/sexual assault cases do) since the case was dismissed after she opted out of testifying. So if the league were to suspend or fine Patricia, what we’re looking at is a player or coach could be disciplined off of an accusation. That puts a lot of power in a Joe or Jane’s hands, even if it got past the unions. 

What I can see coming out of this is a more thorough background investigation for future hires, which I don’t think anyone would be opposed to. Still, you’re then hovering in the waters of whether or not to rescind employment to somebody that did not even see a trial.

Pretty big gray issue. 

[Big Cat]

Do you think the Lions would have hired MP if they had known about the indictment?  Regardless of how old the case is, he should have made full disclosure.  If he is fired, it’s because his failure to disclose deprived management of the opportunity to eliminate the issue before the hire.  Now management is embarrassed and looks incompetent for not doing a routine background check.  MP should have stayed in NE.

[Nnivolcm]

Quote

 

It’s unclear what, if any, information the firm uncovered about the case while vetting Patricia, but when the Lions went back to examine why they only recently learned about the incident, they discovered that Massachusetts employment law prevents the screening company from providing, or them from using as part of their employment decision, information about an arrest, indictment or conviction more than seven years old.

Because Patricia was a resident of Massachusetts at the time of his hiring, the Lions were subject to those laws as well as other local and federal regulations.

 

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2018/05/11/how-did-lions-miss-patricias-arrest/603239002/

 

Still should have been disclosed by Patricia himself imo. Super shady to let the organization get blind sided by this.

[childofpudding]

Smells like a reporter did a Lexis Nexis search and them couldnt contain themselves. Pretty lame.

If the alleged victim didnt want to talk to the reporter, I doubt she'll talk to Roger, and so my guess is this will all fade away in the next couple weeks, and rightfully so.