Not guilty: Jury clears Patriot Jabrill Peppers in assault case
Published in Football
BOSTON — A Quincy District Court jury composed of five women and one man unanimously found New England Patriot safety Jabrill Peppers not guilty on all assault counts against him.
They took roughly an hour to deliberate the case against Peppers, 29, who lives in Braintree. They were released just before 1 p.m. after closing arguments and returned at 2:10 p.m.
He was charged with assault and battery on a household or family member, assault and battery with a deadly weapon and strangulation.
Earlier story
New England Patriot safety Jabrill Pepper‘s fate is now in the hands of the jury at Quincy District Court.
The prosecution rested its case on Thursday, leaving the defense about 20 minutes to call its only witness: Peppers himself. Peppers concluded his testimony on Friday. The defense called no further witnesses and rested its own case at 10:46 a.m.
Peppers, 29, faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon — defined as the wall of his apartment — and assault and battery on a household or family member. Judge Mark Coven said he will also instruct the jury on a lesser included charge of simple assault.
Peppers was arrested early in the morning of Oct. 5 at his Braintree townhouse following an evening in which he celebrated his 29th birthday with friends and a sexual rendezvous with a years-long “hook up” partner. It ended with what both sides agree was a confrontation — but the reasons and the severity of it are in dispute.
She would tell police that night that Peppers had “hit her, choked her, took off her clothing and put her outside,” according to the police report.
On Friday, Peppers continued testimony in which he said the woman accusing him of assault may have been motivated by extracting money from the football player who most recently signed a three-year contract for $24 million.
“I said she was doing all this to mess my career up,” he testified.
In opening arguments, defense attorney Marc Brofsky stressed that the accusing witness had filed a civil suit that in part asked for $9.5 million in damages for the alleged assault, and that the lawyer she had hired was well known for seeking huge sums from celebrities including disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
On Thursday, Peppers testified that it wasn’t the first time she had sought a payout from him, as once she had cleaned his home and requested a $2,000 “cleaning fee” — which he said seemed like a huge amount for such a service, and that she wanted it to pay her mortgage.
Prosecutor Abigail Bird challenged this motivation in her cross examination of Peppers.
“You’d agree with me that this isn’t all about the money, right?” Bird asked in her rapid-fire questioning of the defendant.
“No. I would not agree with you,” Peppers said.
Bird said that the terms sought in the civil suit also asked that he donate $1 million to a domestic violence charity, in addition to a personal apology and a year of anger management therapy.
“I filed a civil lawsuit because I wanted to hold him accountable and I wanted him to know that he can’t treat anyone like this, especially women. I’m a human being and won’t be treated like that,” the woman testified on Wednesday.
But to that challenge, and that $1 million would go to charity, Peppers was quick to remind Bird — and the jury — “and $9.5 million to her.”
In her closing, Bird said “This case isn’t about money. This case is about control. Mr. Peppers wanted to control every aspect of their relationship.”
“She admitted to you that she wanted more,” Bird continued. “He did not want her to be his girlfriend.
“He didn’t want her to be his girlfriend. But he didn’t want her to sleep with his teammate,” she said. “He didn’t want her to be his girlfriend, but he wanted her to know, while they were having sex, that it felt different, that she had been with another man.”
The altercation began, both sides testified, after the woman’s phone rang and rang and rang while the pair were being intimate. It was “Juju” calling, and there were heart emojis next to his name.
The woman had testified that Peppers had told her she was being a “hoe” and sleeping around and the phone call made him incensed. Peppers said he was frustrated because she kept trying to hop on him to have unprotected sex — an escalation in their relationship he didn’t want.
“When he saw that phone ringing, he, Jabrill Peppers, captain of the Patriots, star football player, realized that he wasn’t in control,” Bird said. “He reacted with violence, he grabbed her by the neck, and threw her against the wall.”
In the defense closing, attorney Brofsky assailed responding police officers and their “so-called investigation” which inadequately documented any possible injuries and failed to record statements. He also suggested that the woman was just trying to “build a case” for a payout.
“If she was so violently assaulted by Mr. Peppers, why didn’t she run out of the house?” Brofsky said. “She argued with him, she wanted to debate whether she could take his clothes or take her clothes. She sits on the couch, as comfortable as can be.”
“You might find this is all a scam so she can get paid,” Brofsky said. “That it’s a shakedown. That it’s legalized extortion.”
Peppers' fate is now in the hands of the jury — five women and one man — deliberating in Quincy District Court.
©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Comments