I cant believe that the Steelers are going to suspend Ben for 6 games, as far as I know & I have followed this, he has not been charged or convicted of anything. From what I can ascertain he received a BJ in the bathroom of a bar and the woman later reported that she was assaulted although the cops dropped the case as far a I know. WTF happened to innocent until proven guilty? I suppose speculation & innuendo is enough to bring somebody down these days. Tiger Woods just played the open to crowds of admiring fans, is it me or what?
NFL News Feed: Roethlisberger suspended for six games - Mark Maske
Roethlisberger suspended for six games
UPDATED (1:33 p.m.)...
The NFL suspended Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for the first six games of next season for violating the league's personal conduct policy, the league announced Wednesday.
The suspension potentially could be reduced to four games by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell if Roethlisberger meets certain conditions tied to his potential reinstatement, according to the league's announcement.
Goodell also could extend Roethlisberger's suspension if he chooses, the league announced. Roethlisberger was ordered to undergo a medical evaluation.
The announcement came as ESPN reported that the Steelers had begun contacting teams about a possible trade involving Roethlisberger, seeking a top-10 pick in the NFL draft Thursday night in return. At least one team was considering such a deal, according to ESPN's report.
A district attorney in Georgia announced last week that Roethlisberger would not be charged with a crime based on an allegation by a woman that she was sexually assaulted by Roethlisberger last month at a nightclub.
A 20-year-old college student accused Roethlisberger of sexually assaulting her in a bathroom at a Milledgeville, Ga., nightclub. Frederic D. Bright, the district attorney involved in the case, said when he announced his decision that he could not prove Roethlisberger's guilt to jurors beyond a reasonable doubt. Roethlisberger said that evening that the correct decision had been made by the prosecutor.
Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback for the Steelers, also was accused in a civil lawsuit by a woman in Nevada of sexually assaulting her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2008. Roethlisberger denied that allegation and he was not charged with a crime.
The NFL's personal conduct policy empowers Goodell to impose discipline upon a player as he sees fit for conduct detrimental to the league even if the player is not convicted of a crime.
Goodell said earlier this week that Roethlisberger violated the conduct policy. Roethlisberger met with Goodell for approximately two hours last week in New York, on the day after the prosecutor's announcement in the Georgia case.
Art Rooney II, the president of the Steelers, said at a news conference Thursday that the team was prepared to discipline Roethlisberger but would coordinate disciplinary action with the league. The collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players' union gives a club the ability to suspend a player for as many as four games without pay for conduct detrimental to the team.
There have been multiple reports that the Steelers might consider trading Roethlisberger. Rooney said last week that the team planned to give Roethlisberger another chance to prove himself. He said the Steelers had not discussed a trade of Roethlisberger with any other teams at that point.
According to multiple reports, the St. Louis Rams, who have the top overall selection in the draft Thursday night, informed the Steelers in recent days that they're not interested in trading for Roethlisberger.
The Steelers previously traded wide receiver Santonio Holmes to the New York Jets for a fifth-round draft choice. The former Super Bowl most valuable player was suspended by the NFL for the first four games of next season for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
Roethlisberger's suspension is without pay. Under league policy, the Steelers potentially could be forced to pay money to the NFL office based on the portion of the salary amounts lost by Roethlisberger and Holmes during their suspensions--essentially a fine of the team for having multiple players suspended.
The Steelers obtained Roethlisberger's former backup, Byron Leftwich, in a trade Tuesday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They also have veteran quarterback Charlie Batch and young quarterback Dennis Dixon, who made a start last season when Roethlisberger was hurt.
A source said earlier this week that Roethlisberger would accept any disciplinary action imposed on him if that discipline was not "too harsh."
Rooney said last week that he "made it clear to Ben that his conduct in this incident did not live up to our standards. We made it very clear to Ben that there will be consequences for his actions. And Ben has indicated to us that he's willing to accept those consequences."
Goodell sent a recent memo to NFL teams reminding them that the league's personal conduct policy requires players and other employees to do more than merely avoid committing a crime.
Further details of the case in Georgia emerged last week from hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation released by authorities. The woman, according to the Associated Press, told police that after Roethlisberger had told her and her friends to consume shots of alcohol, she was led into a hallway by one of Roethlisberger's bodyguards and put on a stool. The bodyguard left and Roethlisberger walked down the hallway and exposed himself, according to the woman's account, the AP reported.
The woman told Roethlisberger no and entered a bathroom but Roethlisberger followed her and closed the door, the woman told investigators.
"I still said no, this is not okay, and he then had sex with me," the woman said in one of her statements to investigators, according to the AP. "He said it was okay. He then left without saying anything."
Roethlisberger did not answer questions from reporters when he made his public statement last week following the prosecutor's announcement in Georgia.
Roethlisberger said that evening at the Steelers' training facility: "I'd like to begin by expressing gratitude for the thorough investigation process in Georgia and the prosecutor's decision not to bring charges. I know without a doubt it was the right conclusion. I don't intend to discuss any details related to the events in Georgia and I'm happy to put this behind me and move forward. I am truly sorry for the disappointment and negative attention I have brought to my family, my teammates, coaches, the Rooneys and the NFL.
"I understand that the opportunities I have been blessed with are a privilege and that much is expected of me as the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I absolutely want to be the leader this team deserves, valued in the community and a role model to kids. I have much work to do to earn this trust and I am committed to improving and showing everyone my true values. I am excited to get back to work with my teammates and I'm more determined than ever to have a great season. I intend to make my family, friends and the Steeler nation proud on all fronts. Thank you and God bless."
Roethlisberger had resumed participating in the Steelers' offseason workouts.
________________________________________
Roethlisberger documents give details
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. -- Members of the posse accompanying Ben Roethlisberger on a Georgia bar crawl played a pivotal role in uniting the star quarterback with the woman who accused him of rape -- and barring the women's friends from checking on her, according to investigative documents released Thursday.
The 20-year-old college student told police that a "bodyguard" escorted her to a back room in the Capital City nightclub in Milledgeville shortly before an encounter with Mr. Roethlisberger in a dingy bathroom led to the rape allegations.
And a friend of hers, Nicole Biancofiore, claimed that a third woman was "taken away by a bodyguard of Ben's" when she tried to open the locked bathroom door.
None of the men who were bar-hopping with Mr. Roethlisberger on March 4-5 in Milledgeville, near the quarterback's off-season home, admitted to being involved in any such untoward activity.
That group included Steelers tackle Willie Colon, off-duty Coraopolis police Officer Anthony J. Barravecchio and off-duty Pennsylvania State Trooper Edward Joyner of the Washington barracks.
When the case was closed this week without charges being filed, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's voluminous file became public. Among the hundreds of pages of documents generated during its monthlong investigation were police reports, interviews with at least 54 people and handwritten statements by the accuser.
The Post-Gazette does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.
Reports in the file show that investigators were initially intent on getting a sample of Mr. Roethlisberger's DNA to compare it to a male DNA sample retrieved from the woman through a sexual assault kit. They took swabs of evidence from the nightclub bathroom and obtained a search warrant to collect the quarterback's genetic material.
Officials at the bureau's crime lab, however, told agents that there was too little DNA from the kit to be able to compare it to Mr. Roethlisberger's DNA.
"The sample was so minute that it could not be profiled," George Herrin, deputy director of the bureau's Department of Forensic Science, said.
In the absence of DNA evidence, investigators relied on witness accounts and statements by the alleged victim to try to unearth the truth about what happened in the Capital City nightclub.
In their statements, witnesses describe churlish behavior by the Steelers superstar. Mr. Roethlisberger is said to have exposed his genitals in the nightclub hallway, ordered a woman to be ejected from the club's VIP section and made "crude, sexual remarks" to his accuser. A bartender working the VIP room described the quarterback as "mean."
At the same time, one person in Mr. Roethlisberger's entourage, Mr. Colon, told police that the accuser repeatedly tried to get the quarterback's attention at a bar earlier in the evening, pinched Mr. Roethlisberger and, along with others in her party, wore a sexually suggestive nametag.
Mr. Colon said the woman asked him if he knew what her "DTF" nametag meant. She said it was a crude acronym for wanting to have sex.
Authorities have already said the woman was drunk -- so much so that an initial police report noted: "It is unclear to what happened after this point due to the complainant's recollection being foggy from her intoxication level."
The officer who wrote that report, Milledgeville police Sgt. Jerry Blash, is under investigation for comments allegedly made to one of Mr. Roethlisberger's friends at Capital City.
"Hey, I need to talk to you guys," Sgt. Blash reportedly told Officer Barravecchio, the off-duty Coraopolis officer.
"We have a problem. This drunken bitch, drunk off her ass, is accusing Ben of rape," Officer Barravecchio said Sgt. Blash told him. "This pisses me off. Women can do this. It's[bull] but we've got to do this, we've got to do a report. This is BS. She's making [stuff] up."
Ms. Biancofiore said at first it seemed as if Sgt. Blash was not going to file a report. She told investigators that Sgt. Blash said he would, but also noted that Mr. Roethlisberger has wealth, has access to lawyers and that they would be wasting their time.
Milledgeville police Chief Woodrow W. Blue Jr. said Sgt. Blash's alleged comments did not influence the investigation and had no bearing on its outcome. He said that the sergeant's conduct is under investigation. Sgt. Blash resigned Wednesday.
Fredric D. Bright, the local district attorney, announced Monday that he would not file rape charges against Mr. Roethlisberger because of an inability to prove that a crime had occurred early March 5. Despite his conclusion, Mr. Bright nevertheless publicly upbraided the quarterback for his conduct.
In the reports released Thursday, witnesses indicated that Mr. Roethlisberger and his cohort were so image-conscious that they worried about pictures taken of the superstar posing with drinks or alongside women with alcoholic beverages.
At the same time, the quarterback thought nothing of holding court in the back room of a nightclub where a bartender lined up tequila shots for Mr. Roethlisberger, his male friends and a number of attractive young women, some of them underage and with fake IDs.
One of those friends, Trooper Joyner, who was off-duty, permitted only women to enter the VIP section of the Capital City nightclub.
Mr. Colon told investigators that was because of past encounters with jealous boyfriends and said his teammate's bodyguards "found it simpler to keep them out."
Mr. Colon was among the men who gathered to celebrate Mr. Roethlisberger's 28th birthday in Georgia.
On March 4, the group went jet skiing on Lake Oconee. Tired from drinking heavily the night before, according to Mr. Colon's account, the group did not imbibe.
They dined that evening at a sushi restaurant and then headed into Milledgeville, an antebellum city of roughly 19,000 people and home to Georgia College & State University. The off-duty officers chauffeured the group in two vehicles.
Although the night out began with no plan, Mr. Colon said a waitress suggested several hot spots popular with the college crowd, including the Velvet Elvis and Capital City. The men popped into a total of six bars, with Capital City being the final stop. They attracted attention along the way.
Around 11 p.m, as the group entered Velvet Elvis, a group of women that included the accuser were at the end of the bar. Mr. Colon said the women recognized the quarterback and went "nutty."
"The girls approached Roethlisberger and asked to take photographs with him, and Roethlisberger accommodated their requests." The women said they were wearing their provocative nametags, which they had received at a birthday party, because "they thought it was funny."
In the second of her two written statements, the accuser said she and her friends "left him alone."
Mr. Roethlisberger's group crossed the street to another bar, The Brick. Mr. Colon said the women followed them, although the accuser wrote that "We went to The Brick, where they happened to be. We continued to have casual conversation. He even made crude, sexual remarks."
While at The Brick, Mr. Colon said, the woman "repeatedly attempted to get Roethlisberger's attention, which included pinching him." She wrote that he called her "a tease."
Again, the crowd grew around Mr. Roethlisberger and he "was getting annoyed that people continued to take photographs of him with alcoholic beverages in his hand."
The groups ran into each other again at Capital City. Mr. Roethlisberger and his group were given a back room, a private bartender and a bouncer. Besides Mr. Roethlisberger's friends, there were "a lot of blonde girls," Officer Barravecchio recalled.
Drinking commenced, and the quarterback ordered two rounds of tequila shots. The bar tab totaled $160, which Trooper Joyner paid in cash.
In the first of her two written statements, the accuser told police that when she found herself in the room with Mr. Roethlisberger, "I said, 'I don't know if this is a good idea,' and he said, 'It's OK.' He had sex with me and meanwhile his bodyguards told my friends they couldn't pass them to get to me."
The woman's handwriting is clearly sloppier than in her subsequent statement, given later in the day. In the first statement, she refers to the quarterback as "Ben Rotheseburgehergh."
In the second statement, she writes that Mr. Roethlisberger invited her party to the VIP area.
"He said there were shots for us, numerous shots were on the bar, and he told us to take them.
"His bodyguard came and took my arm and said, 'Come with me.' He escorted me into a side door/hallway and sat me on a stool."
The bodyguard left, she told police, and Mr. Roethlisberger appeared with his genitalia out of his pants.
"I told him, 'It wasn't OK, no, we don't need to do this,' and I proceeded to get up and try to leave. I went to the first door I saw, which happened to be a bathroom. He followed me into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
"I still said, 'No, this is not OK.' And he then had sex with me. He said it was OK. He then left without saying anything. I went out of the hallway/door to the side where I saw my friends. We left Capital and went to the first police car we saw."
Ms. Biancofiore, the accuser's friend, said the woman "was dragged by a bodyguard to the back room in Capital. She was extremely intoxicated and not aware of what was happening."
A third friend, Ann Marie Lubatti, told police, that she "approached the other security guard and told him that she [the accuser] was in no shape to be back there with Ben Roethlisberger. He couldn't look me in the eye, and told me he didn't know what was going on."
The GBI later identified that bodyguard as Trooper Joyner, and the GBI also determined that the man who led Roethlisberger's accuser down the hallway was Officer Barravecchio.
Ms. Lubatti and Ms. Biancofiore told authorities that their friend and Mr. Roethlisberger were in the bathroom for about 10 minutes. He emerged first. When she came out, she had tears in her eyes.
They asked what happened.
"We need to go," she said. "We need to go."
Trooper Joyner said he never stopped anyone from going in the hallway area of the bar and never saw anyone else in the group do so.
Officer Barravecchio said on Mr. Roethlisberger's instruction he showed a woman where the bathroom was but did not remain there. Instead, he went to the main bar to get Red Bulls for himself and Trooper Joyner.
Soon after, Sgt. Blash showed up at the club and said, "The way she says it happened, there is no way," Trooper Joyner said. He added that Sgt. Blash said the accuser had already changed her story several times.
Mr. Bright, the district attorney, said during his news conference that when the accuser first approached a police officer outside the nightclub immediately after the incident, "The police officer asked 'Did he rape you?' And her response was 'No.' Then he asked, 'Did you have sex?' And she said, 'Well, I'm not sure.' "
On the way back to his home in Reynolds Plantation, the quarterback called his lawyer.
In the other vehicle, Mr. Colon and his group discussed what happened and how "we can't get ourselves in these situations."
Upon arrival, Mr. Colon said Mr. Roethlisberger told him that the accusation was "BS" and that he did not do anything.