Running back Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings looks on during a preseason game... Read More
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) – Minnesota Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson intends to plead not guilty to a felony child-abuse charge when he appears in a Texas court today, which could keep him out of professional football the rest of the year.“If he is asked to enter a plea it will be not guilty,” Rusty Hardin, Peterson’s lawyer, said in an e-mail last week. “The main event will be getting a trial setting.”
A not guilty plea will require the
judge to set a trial date for Peterson, a star in the National Football League. Phil Grant, the district attorney in Montgomery County, Texas, where Peterson is to be tried, has said it can take 9 months to 12 months before a trial starts in such cases.
Peterson, a Pro Bowl MVP and the Associated Press’s NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2007, was put on the league’s commissioner’s exempt list, which means he can’t take part in any of the Vikings’ team activities and doesn’t take up a roster spot. He still gets paid his $11.75 million salary. It’s up to the league’s commissioner to decide when the exemption should be lifted.
Peterson was indicted Sept. 12 by a grand jury on one count of injury to a child for disciplining his 4-year-old son with a switch –- a whip fashioned from a thin tree branch.
Peterson issued a public apology for the incident, which occurred when the child was visiting his father’s Houston-area home in May. Peterson said he never intended to hurt his son, whom he’d disciplined in the same way he was while growing up in east Texas.
If convicted, Peterson, 29, faces up to two years in jail and a fine of $10,000. He has been free on $15,000 bond since voluntarily surrendering to authorities Sept. 13.
The case is Texas vs. Peterson, 14-09-10024-CR, 9th Judicial District Court of Montgomery County, Texas (Conroe).
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