Josh Jacobs has denied any wrongdoing after three other women contacted police to report abuse allegations against him while the Green Bay Packers running back was being investigated for a different incident earlier this year.
Jacobs’ attorneys issued a statement on Sunday afternoon denying all three additional abuse allegations that were made against him, and said that he has “a substantial body of tangible evidence to back up his assertions.”
“The three accounts are old, are hearsay and easily disproven, yet released to the media by police without any investigation to determine whether they were accurate or contradicted by evidence,” his attorneys said, via the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. “Josh is answering them in detail because of the character assassination that is occurring, unfairly threatening his career.”
New allegations made against Josh Jacobs
Jacobs was arrested in northern Wisconsin in May and charged with multiple counts of domestic abuse. Jacobs allegedly grabbed a woman trying to leave his garage and threw her to the ground. He was formally charged with battery and criminal damage to property after that incident, and he pleaded no contest to both charges.
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Jacobs landed on the commissioner’s exempt list and missed the first six weeks of the NFL season as a result.
But on Saturday, previously unreleased files showed that the Hobart/Lawrence Police Department was contacted by at least three other women accusing Jacobs of abuse in recent years.
One woman told police that, in 2022, Jacobs slapped her in the face and took her cellphone as she tried to leave his home. She told investigators that Jacobs grabbed her by the hair, pinned her down on a bed, threw her onto the floor, spit on her and grabbed her by the throat. The woman said that the two remained friends after the incident, and she didn’t want to report him to police. Jacobs’ attorneys said that the woman reported it to the league, but that the NFL reviewed it and decided no action was warranted.
A second woman said that, in 2021, Jacobs grabbed her arm, pushed her up against a wall and threw items of hers outside of the home. She said she had swelling by her rib area and suffered bruising to her arms. She contacted police after the incident and said it was not investigated as a domestic incident because the two were not in a relationship. Jacobs’ attorneys said that he called Las Vegas police to his home to report the woman for misconduct, and that her claims were “effectively undermined” in a police report.
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A third woman said that Jacobs flew her to his home in 2022, and that she had an altercation with Jacobs in which he grabbed her by the head, dragged her, scratched her chest and took her phone after it fell on the floor. The woman said that she had bruising on her arm and scratches on her chest, and that she didn’t report it at the time because she feared being deported from the United States.
Jacobs’ attorneys said that he denied any physical altercation with the third woman, that another person was present in the house during part of the stay, and that she left the following evening on her own.
“The police department’s released file contains only phone interviews, taken years after the fact, with no additional investigation save for an acknowledgement that Josh did nothing wrong,” his attorneys said. “Josh was not given an opportunity to present evidence to Hobart-Lawrence in response to the uncorroborated report, primarily because Hobart-Lawrence took no action related to the unsupported and stale allegations.”
Regardless of whether Jacobs faces criminal charges from the new allegations, the NFL could still suspend Jacobs for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The NFL said in a statement that it was reviewing “these allegations as part of the investigation which has remained open.”
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Jacobs returned to play for the Packers in their Week 7 loss to the Detroit Lions. He had 39 rushing yards and a touchdown on 21 carries in their win over the Carolina Panthers on Thursday.
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