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Stefon Diggs faces a pivotal court Friday after switching attorneys in his assault case—latest unwelcome update for the Patriots star.
Less than one week after the New England Patriots suffered a crushing defeat in Super Bowl LX, falling to the Seattle Seahawks by a 29-13 score, the team’s four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver faces a more serious legal issue. Stefon Diggs is set for his first court date Friday Feb. 13 in Dedham District Court, in a case that sees him charged with “felony strangulation or suffocation and misdemeanor assault and battery,” according to court documents.
But with less than 24 hours to go before Diggs’ arraignment on the charges, there was a jarring development when both of his lawyers withdrew from representing him, according to a Boston Globe report.
Diggs was represented by Boston-area criminal defense lawyers David E. Meier and Michael R. DiStefano, who had previously made statements on Diggs’ behalf denying the charges that stem from an incident with a personal chef at Diggs’ home on Dec. 2, 2025. Whether Meier and DiStefano withdrew from the case on their own volition or whether Diggs fired them remained unclear as of Thursday evening.
Changing legal teams immediately before a court date is never an ideal situation for a criminal defendant, but according to court records cited by the Globe, Diggs has now retained Boston-area lawyer Sara Silva, a partner at the Needham, Massachusetts law firm Silva, Kettlewell & Pignatelli. On her LinkedIn page, Silva — who did not respond to the Globe’s requests for comment — lists her areas of legal practice as “white-collar criminal defense, general criminal defense, complex civil litigation, sentencing issues.”
Diggs Has Not Publicly Commented on Charges
The charges against Diggs first surfaced publicly on Dec. 30, 2025, just five days before the Patriots’ final game of the regular season when they took on and defeated the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium.
According to a police report quoted by Heavy.com reporter Sophie Weller, the charges against Diggs originated with a financial dispute between Diggs and the woman who served as his personal chef at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts, about a 20-minute drive from the Patriots’ home stadium.
The incident, according to the alleged victim cited by the police report, took place at Diggs’ home on Dec. 2, starting with an argument over an amount of money the chef believed she was owed. As the argument escalated, she told police, Diggs “smacked her across the face,” and “then tried to choke her using the crook of his elbow around her neck.”
Diggs’ first and, to date, only public comment on the charges came on Jan. 2, when he said that he had been going through “an emotional time” as a result of the allegations, but “it’s definitely an open case, so I can’t even say anything about it.”
Diggs Expected to Enter Plea Friday
Diggs is scheduled to appear in Dedham District Court to be arraigned on the charges Friday. Typically, arraignment hearings are where a defendant first hears prosecutors state the charges in a formal setting. Diggs would then be expected to answer the charges by entering a plea of not guilty or guilty, though defendants rarely plead guilty unless they have previously agreed with prosecutors and a judge.
The plea, if entered, would be Diggs’ first public statement responding directly to the charges.
Diggs was initially scheduled to be arraigned in January, but a judge granted his request to push the court date until after the Super Bowl to ensure that it did not conflict with his professional obligations to the Patriots.
The NFL player’s previous attorneys said in December that Diggs and the chef were attempting to negotiate a financial settlement. Whether his new lawyer, Silva, is continuing to pursue that possibility remains unclear but may be clarified at Friday’s arraignment hearing.
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin
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