Ray Lewis Says His Clothes Were Too Nice to Commit Murder Back in 2000

Is this really his best defense?

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Complex Original

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Ray Lewis is one of the most successful linebackers in NFL history. But when you say his name, many people still automatically think back to the 2000 murder charge that he caught in connection to the stabbing deaths of two men at a Super Bowl XXXIV afterparty. The charge was eventually dropped after Lewis agreed to testify against two of his friends, and he was sentenced to just one year of probation after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice—but he never really shook his connection to the crime.

Lewis just released a book called I Feel Like Going On: Life, Game, and Glory and, in it, he details why there’s no way he could have been involved in the 2000 murders. In his mind, he was dressed way too nice on the night of the murders to kill anyone.

“Remember, I was dressed out, had my jewelry on, my fine mink coat,” he writes in the book. “I wasn’t about to start mixing it up looking like that. That’s the general rule of thumb when you’re doing the town and looking good. The nicer you’re dressed, the less inclined you are to get in a fight—that is, if you’re inclined in that way to begin with.”

Lewis went on to explain that, when all hell broke loose after a group of “gangbangers” approached him and his friends, he was standing on the sidelines with his jewelry and his mink.

“Dude dresses like that, he’s not looking for a fight,” he said. “How I was dressed, it made no sense with what went down, those shots being fired, all of that. Forget what kind of statement my clothes might have made. Forget that I might have been a little loud, over the top. Point is, when you’re dressed like that, you’re off to the sidelines, and here were these gangbangers stepping out to us from the shadows, looking to make trouble—but it was trouble we drove right past.”

You can check out Lewis’ book here.

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[via New York Daily News]

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