Domestic violence case against Broncos' Marshall dropped

Marshall calls disagreement 'an eye-opener'

Lee Rasizer, Rocky Mountain News

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Denver Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall was relieved Friday after charges of false imprisonment stemming from a domestic dispute were dropped.

But he was left with a tinge of frustration that a dispute with his girlfriend evolved into such a public mess in the first place.

"Basically, I just thought from what happened it was kind of ridiculous for the arresting officer to take me down for something that wasn't a legit reason," Marshall, 23, said hours after Douglas County Assistant District Attorney Leslie Hansen declined to proceed with the case.

"For my career to go through what it went through and my character and personality taking a hit over something that basically wasn't valid was an eye-opener to the high profile that me as an athlete has."

Kathleen Walsh, spokeswoman for the 18th judicial district, said the case didn't proceed further because Marshall had completed anger-management classes. His trial had been scheduled for June 7.

"It's very typical in cases like this," she said.

And Marshall did meet with the Broncos director of player and organizational development to hash out those issues, as mandated by the NFL.

But Harvey Steinberg, Marshall's lawyer, countered the reason false imprisonment and domestic violence counts were dismissed was because they weren't legitimate.

"My position from the beginning was that the charges should never have been filed," Steinberg said. "We felt that Brandon had not committed a crime."

Marshall, entering his second season with the Broncos, was arrested March 26 outside his apartment complex after a dispute with longtime girlfriend Rasheedah Watley that ended with the player blocking Watley's taxi from leaving. That incident capped a night that began with Marshall dropping off Watley at Denver International Airport for a flight to Atlanta his girlfriend never took.

Instead, the two paired up shortly thereafter and began their disagreement.

Steinberg's investigation revealed that when Watley later that night entered the taxi, she opened the glove box and put something inside, believed to be Marshall's Blackberry phone/pager. The taxi driver, he added, later confirmed he heard the player yelling "give me back my cell phone" at Watley outside the car.

"He was just trying to get back what she had taken improperly from him," Steinberg said.

As for reports that Marshall had pounded on the taxi aggressively, the lawyer countered "there was never a suggestion of any threats. The taxi driver didn't report that she (the girlfriend) was threatened in any way. And obviously he's big enough if he wanted to break that window or dent that door, he could have done either."

Marshall said the incident taught him the importance of controlling his emotions in high-stress moments. Still, while he bore some responsibility for the situation escalating - "there was a moment where I let my emotions get the best of me," he said - the receiver also wanted to make it clear he never struck Watley.

"It definitely wasn't a physical thing," Marshall said. "I grew up into a household where my father was abusive to my mother at one point. So my brother and I grew up in a household that saw that, and my mother taught us right from wrong and the correct way to treat a woman. We don't condone that at all in our household. It was one of those things where it was a disagreement. It was time for her to leave, and it so happened it turned into this. But everybody wanted to blow it up without knowing the actual truth."

Staff writer Ivan Moreno contributed to this report.