A Washington State prosecutor says any arraignment or other court appearance for Saints running back Chris Ivory most likely won't happen before January 2011.
(See incident report)
Whitman County prosecutor Denis Tracy says because Ivory no longer lives in the state of Washington, travel considerations and scheduling conflicts have been taken into account but Tracy insists, Ivory isn't receiving any special treatment. "We would extend the same courtesy to anyone not living in the state facing similar charges," Tracy said.
Ivory has been charged with felony assault in Whitman County after he allegedly hit another student with a beer bottle during a college party back in July 2009. At the time of the alleged assault, Ivory was a member of the Washington State football team. He was kicked off the team shortly after the incident. Earlier this year, as a member of the New Orleans Saints, Ivory claimed he was dismissed from Washington State for being late to meetings and for no other reason.
Eyewitness Sports has obtained a copy of the incident report surrounding the alleged assault. According to the report, the alleged victim says an argument with Ivory began over cigarettes and ended with Ivory hitting the alleged victim in the head with a beer
bottle. One witness says she saw Ivory then kick the alleged victim while he was lying on the ground and bleeding.
According to the report, one witness actually identified another Washington State football player, not Ivory, as the suspect. That witness later said after looking at pictures on the Washington State football team's website, he couldn't positively identify Ivory or the other player as the person he saw commit the alleged assault.
Also in the report are a series of text messages between the alleged victim's sister and another woman who was allegedly with Ivory when the incident happened. The text messages place Ivory at the scene and also describe in detail the alleged assault.
When questioned by police later about the text messages, both Ivory and the woman who sent the text messages implicating Ivory in the assault, denied knowing anything about the incident or each other.
Ivory told police, according the report, he was camping with two other teammates in Spokane, Washington when the alleged assault took place.
If convicted of the class B felony, Ivory could face between 3-9 months in jail. Back in October, when the charges were first reported, Saints head coach Sean Payton said the team was aware of the incident and was monitoring the situation. The NFL also said they are looking into the matter.
