WNBA player Rickea Jackson \u201cremains cooperative and is willing to testify\u201d if the felony domestic violence charges against Atlanta Falcons edge rusher James Pearce Jr. result in a trial, according to a document submitted by her attorneys to the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade (Fla.) County.<\/p>\n
In that document, Jackson, a 24-year-old forward for the Los Angeles Sparks, also asked the court for \u201cproceedings free from unreasonable delay, and to a prompt and final conclusion of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pearce, through his attorneys, has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n
Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski, who was hired three weeks before Pearce\u2019s arrest in Doral, Fla., this past Saturday, addressed the issue for the first time Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s really nothing to add,\u201d he said before introducing his three coordinator hires. \u201cI\u2019ll defer and our coaches will defer to the statement that was put out. I understand there are questions you all have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stefanski left the room without taking questions. The Falcons released a statement on Saturday following Pearce\u2019s arrest that read: \u201cWe are aware of an incident involving James Pearce Jr. in Miami. We are in the process of gathering more information and will not have any further comment on an open legal matter at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich later referred to the incident as an \u201cunfortunate situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust don\u2019t have all the details of it. We\u2019ll see. It\u2019s still so early,\u201d Ulbrich said. Asked about the future of Pearce, 22, with the team next year, he said, \u201cwe are not there yet either way \u2026 I was obviously disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pearce was charged with five felonies after an incident in which, according to a police report, he followed Jackson\u2019s car in his own vehicle and \u201cintentionally\u201d made contact with her car multiple times. Pearce also attempted to block Jackson\u2019s access to the Doral police station and fled from the scene before being detained, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Pearce was ultimately charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated stalking, aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer, fleeing and eluding police and resisting arrest without violence, according to a police affidavit.<\/p>\n
Pearce spent Saturday night in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center before being released Sunday on a $20,500 bond. Before his release, Pearce was ordered by a judge to stay away from Jackson, and one of his attorneys told the judge that Pearce planned to return to Atlanta. After Pearce\u2019s release, the lawyers representing him in the case \u2014 Jacob Nunez, Yale Sanford and Joshua Cohen \u2014 released a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to working with the State Attorney\u2019s Office in fully investigating this case and uncovering the truth,\u201d it read. \u201cMr. Pearce maintains his innocence and urges the public to understand that while allegations have the power to shape a narrative, that it is hardly the full, complete story. We look forward to vigorously defending our client and remain confident that he will continue contributing positively to both his team and the community he serves so well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA player Rickea Jackson \u201cremains cooperative and is willing to testify\u201d if the felony domestic violence charges against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,224,7,40439,6,12370],"class_list":{"0":"post-745591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlantafalcons","11":"tag-falcons","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-los-angeles-sparks","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116053943513382930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}