Jets Wide Receiver Cleared of Assault Charges

MANHATTAN (CN) - New York Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall was found not liable for charges of assault and battery in a jury verdict delivered Friday afternoon, ending a week-long trial in Manhattan.

Marshall attended Friday morning's closing remarks but was said to have been out for lunch when the jury foreman responded "no" twice to whether the jury thought Marshall had assaulted and battered Christin Myles.

An anonymous male juror cited the graininess of the security camera footage as not enough evidence to prove that a punch from Marshall is what injured Myles on the late night of March 12, 2012. The female-led jury took about two hours to make their decision Friday afternoon.

"Thank goodness for that tape...Now they're stymied, now they have to tell the truth," Marshall's attorney, Harvey Steinberg, said, reeling against the veracity of Myles' testimony in his closing remarks.

Myles, 28, who had cried several times during direct testimony, immediately choked up after jury's verdict was announced.

After the verdict, speaking to the press, Steinberg said, "Brandon Marshall bears no ill will to Christin Myles...He knew he never touched her or punched her."

Around 2 p.m. Friday, a half hour after the jury announced the verdict to a courtroom that Marshall was absent from, he tweeted, "I'm in the air now. Can't wait to interview my brother. #chicagobound."

The previous tweet 20 minutes before that linked to a quote about love and forgiveness, attributed to Mother Teresa.

Lawyers on both sides deferred to grainy nightclub security camera footage in their closing arguments. Only Myles' lawyers played the video, freeze-framing the moment that shows what they called an "undisputed" punch thrown by Marshall. The next frame was a motion blur, which Myles' attorney Joshua Moskovitz claimed to show the force of Marshall's allegedly deliberate blow.

"A punch is a punch," Moskovitz said at the end of his closing remarks.

Moskovitz made a push at the end of his closing remarks to gently guide the jury to consider Marshall's "malicious and intentional act" of "a man punching a woman" when they consider punitive damages.

The anonymous male juror suggested that, even if the jury had found Marshall liable, they would not have awarded punitive damages.

Steinberg made the first closing remarks by attacking the plaintiff for only pursuing the lawsuit as a grab at the NFL player's deep pockets. He brought up a "certain irony" in Myles "seeking damages for the thing she did" - the punch she admitted to swinging that missed Marshall and his friend and former NFL player, Mike Sims-Walker.

Marshall's defense attorney used Marquee nightclub's security footage to reiterate to the jury that there was "no question" that Marshall and Sims-Walker "retreated" from the violent scene outside the club, and that Myles swung at Marshall with a closed fist.

Steinberg emphasized that the footage shows Myles get punched, not by Marshall, but by a woman who was seen on the tape with her hands clenched in a ball above her, swinging down and in to the crowd on the sidewalk outside of Marquee.

Marshall's attorney pointed to discrepancies in Myles' story, deducing that "either she was intoxicated or wasn't totally forthcoming with the police."

Steinberg, who spent much of the trial acting very animated, seemed happy to reenact the several punches, pushes and retreats with a full 360-degree range of motion. He assumed his most stringent stance of the trial at the podium, speaking deliberately and loudly when saying, "He did nothing, and that's her testimony."

After the verdict in his client's favor, Steinberg concluded that "the jury honestly understood the situation." Following the verdict, Marshall's lawyers requested a motion for costs.

Steinberg declined to comment when asked if any offers to settle had been made.

Myles is currently an executive assistant at the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles, Calif.

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