After the first day of Jabrill Peppers’ criminal trial on domestic violence charges, the New England Patriots player will continue his testimony on Friday morning.
The Patriots’ safety took the stand in his own defense on Thursday — the lone witness his lawyer, Marc Alan Brofksy, said he would call — just before the end of the day.
In the start of his brief testimony, Peppers downplayed the seriousness of his relationship with the woman who accused him of hitting her and throwing her down a flight of stairs in October last year.
He is expected to resume his testimony on Friday morning, and jury deliberations are to begin by mid-morning.
In the courtroom on Thursday, as she testified for hours, Brofsky tried to undermine the victim’s credibility in a sharp cross-examination about the extent of her injuries from that October night.
In all, the seven jurors empaneled in the case heard from three witnesses called by prosecutors on Thursday: the woman, the Braintree police officer who arrested Peppers, and the officer who booked him.
But most of the focus was on the woman, who testified for hours under both direct and cross-examination, and relayed the events of that October night.
The details included when the two, who’d been seeing each other romantically but not exclusively, ran into each other while out in North End and went back to Peppers’ townhome in Braintree.
Peppers is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, strangulation or suffocation and assault and battery on a household member.
He admitted on Thursday to sufficient facts on a misdemeanor drug possession charge for cocaine found in his wallet on the night of his arrest.
This story included information from articles by MassLive reporter Charlie McKenna.
