New York Giants cornerback DeAndre Baker made the news and ended up at the center of attention for the Giants unexpectedly last week, but according to one of his attorneys, he had no intention to end up in such a situation. In fact, if Baker’s legal team is to be believed, this all started in quite a mundane way – with Baker wanting to play Madden for a couple of hours and ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Patrick Patel spoke with the New York Post and continued to defend his client, this time saying that Baker wasn’t in the same room that the robbery happened and that his intent was simply to play Madden.
“Far from an individual who’s going somewhere with an alleged intent to rob somebody, an armed robbery, to go there and hook up his ‘Madden’ game, play the game for over an hour and then leave it there and go home,” Patel stated. “And this ruckus blows out in another room in this house. He doesn’t have anything to do with the ruckus. He didn’t even see it. The only thing he sees is out of the corner of his eye a table getting flipped over and everybody running, screaming and yelling. And he’s out. Thank God he bounced.”
Patel also questioned the prosecution by claiming that it took two hours for anyone to call the police after the robbery, and says that his client didn’t lose money gambling – the latter statement contradicting the popular narrative that has been established so far.
“He absolutely, positively, 100 percent guarantees he didn’t gamble no $70,000, didn’t gamble at all with this group prior or during this whole issue,” Patel continued.
But are the arguments from Baker’s legal team true? Currently, it’s impossible to say one way or the other – the evidence isn’t out there yet to either support or debunk these statements. Baker’s defense, however, does intend to look for electronic evidence that Baker was indeed playing Madden at the time of the robbery.
For now, though, the evidence has yet to manifest itself, and whether or not Baker is guilty is still in question. With the offseason rolling on, there will be significant pressure to get to the bottom of the case quickly – before the situation eats into the start of training camp.