It’ll never happen. The bigger threat to Vick is the loss of his NFL career.
It occurs to me that this could wind up being the most racially divisive case since OJ. I imagine Vick will have a lot of defenders who fervently believe he is being set up and/or unfairly persecuted.
I think an even bigger threat than that is the loss of a shitload of money. Recently, NFL arbitrators have ruled in favor of teams trying to recover signing bonuses from players who retired unexpectedly or who were unable to play due to their own criminal conduct - Ricky Williams is the prime example. Vick is playing under a nine year contract that he signed in December of 2004, and he’s received about $37 million in bonuses. He’s only played out two years of that contract, leaving seven years remaining.
If he’s suspended or incarcerated, the Falcons could potentially sue him for 78% of that $37 million, or almost $28.8 million. Anybody think Vick has that much cash in the bank in case he has to give it back?
If all this is true, “idiot” is one of the nicer things you could say about Vick.
There is a video link on the ESPN website where they outline the charges and the liklihood of him being convicted. At the end there is a quote from someone affiliated with the NFL that leads me to believe they won’t suspend him until they know for sure that he’s guilty, which won’t be, what, for a year or so?
That means he’ll get to keep another year or so of his signing bonus anyway…
I don’t have any money riding on him being possible a Nobel winner. NPR exerpted an interview with Fox Sports:
The normal response to that question can range from a devout, “If the good Lord is willing,” to a bombastic, “Hell, yeah!” It’s never, “No comment.” The pause was short but, with his response, telling: He had no idea what “exonerated” means. I would think that had been covered in NFL Boot Camp, but he might’ve been sick that day.
They may say that now, but Pacman Jones hasn’t been convicted of anything either.
I doubt it. As a white guy, I think we should sit back and watch the trial before we start polishing the electric chair. I’m a bit surprised at all of the vitriol aimed at him, when we still don’t have the facts.
I was charged with destruction of property once because my dog shed on someone’s mattress (that was stored in my garage). The charge looked a lot worse than it actually was, and caused me some embarrassment. Could be the same thing here.
If he did it, I say we nail his balls to a fencepost and push him over backwards…but let’s be certain first.
Not sick. He had gone to see a man about a dog. Or six.
True…but Pacman Jones was a repeat offender and this one is much more serious. The NFL will look like fools if it turns out he was innocent and it ends up that they suspended him for a year (or whatever).
[Free legal advice]
Vick should do himself a favor and turn state’s evidence if it isn’t too late to do so.
[End free legal advice]
Could be true, but it’s ass backwards. What’s Jones accused of? Six different varieties of being a jackass, including beating up a stripper? If this is worse and the NFL wants to have any sort of consistency with their policy, they can’t wait.
Did you read the smoking gun report?
It’s filled with eyewitness accounts of Vick and his crew travelling across state lines to fight dogs for multi-thousand dollar purse.
Whether they can prove it or not, I don’t know. But no one is conflating “forgot to feed his dog” animal cruelty with “beating a dog against the ground to kill it” animal cruelty.
Racially divisive?
I doubt it, too. OJ was accused of killing a white woman and a white man and the detectives were members of the LAPD. I don’t think black people consider any trial against a famous black person to be a case of rail-roading him.
This is still just dog-fighting. It pisses people off, but it’s not murder.
Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of their policy (whatever it may be). It smells to me of people making things up as they go along. They need something in stone otherwise crap like this is going to keep coming up.
An excellent point. The two cases are not remotely comparable. Nifong *had *no evidence because there *was *no evidence. None. Only the complainant’s many, contradictory statements. Which he never heard first hand, by the way.
I did take a look at it this morning. Certainly, it does not look good for Michael.
With that said, if he had family members who did this (without his knowledge), and they got in trouble…I could see them fabricating his involvement. Obviously if they are shady enough to do dogfighting in the first place, they are certainly shady enough to say, “Officer, you might have me, but check out this BIG fish who owns the property!”. Then the “Nifonging” of the system begins
I’m not giving him a pass, I don’t care for the guy, and I have made my feelings clear on what should happen if the allegations are true.
Is that the case? Are the witnesses against him family members?
Nifong had no evidence. He did not have witnesses who were lying in order to cover their asses. He made it up, all by himself, in order to advance his political career. The two cases are not remotely comparable.
It certainly looks more solid a case than Duke. While the cooperating witnesses are all people who were directly involved in the dogfights that Vick is accused of, I’d say it’s unlikely that you could get 4 guys to all lie about Vick’s involvement. I would be interested, though, in knowing they had real dates for these fights instead of “late 2003”. I have to assume that fudge factor is in there for the indictment, but will not be there for trial.
You want me to believe the witness knows exactly who’s dog it was, the names of everyone there, exactly how much the bets are, and who went to the car for the book bag full of cash, but he can’t even pin down the weekend the fight happened?
I do not know if they are all direct family, or if some are friends.
“Nifonging” is meant in the more general “justice fuckup”. I shouldn’t have been so vague.
Too late. There are already four “cooperating witnesses.”
Profootballtalk.com, (a blog run by a lawyer with primo nfl contacts) has been all over this story from the start