Sign up for one of our email newsletters.
Updated 17 minutes ago
The voice caught on video boasting of knocking out two men as they were sprawled unconscious across a South Side sidewalk does not belong to Darrelle Revis, attorneys for the NFL cornerback and former Pitt standout said Monday.
Revis, 31, an Aliquippa High School graduate, is facing felony assault, robbery and conspiracy charges stemming from an altercation near East Carson and South 23rd streets shortly after bars closed Feb. 12.
The incident left Dallas Cousins, 22, of Kittanning, with a golf ball-sized contusion, an inch-long laceration above his left eyebrow and an orbital floor fracture, Pittsburgh police said in a criminal complaint. A second victim, Zacheriah Jarvis, 21, had a contusion on his right cheek.
TMZ posted an 8-second video clip Sunday that appears to be taken from a mobile phone before police responded to the altercation at about 2:45 a.m.
While two men lay on the ground, a man's voice can be heard yelling, “I knocked both of these mother (expletive) out! Both of them! They both sleep!”
Robert G. Del Greco Jr. and Mark Fiorilli, attorneys for Revis, on Monday asserted Revis “absolutely, categorically and positively did not knock out anyone.”
“The voice and admissions made on the video are NOT that of Darrelle Revis,” Revis' attorneys said in a statement.
Witnesses told police Cousins and Jarvis were unconscious for about 10 minutes, but nobody has been able to identify who did the punching.
Blaine Jones, attorney for Revis until the New York Jets cornerback surrendered himself to law enforcement Friday night, told the Tribune-Review last week that Revis was alone when he was “shoulder-checked” by a “heavily intoxicated” man, got into an argument and “tried to retreat.”
The situation escalated when Cousins followed Revis while filming him on his phone.
At one point, Revis grabbed Cousins' phone, attempted to delete the video and then threw the phone in the middle of East Carson Street, the complaint said. Then, another man showed up who Cousins said he believed to be “Revis' friend.”
Cousins and Jarvis remembered getting punched, then waking up to talk to police, the complaint filed by Pittsburgh police Officer Anthony Burke said.
When Burke asked witness Nathan Watt whether it was Revis or the other unidentified man who punched his friends, Watt replied, “I don't know. It happened so fast,” the complaint said.
However, Watt remembered Revis getting close to his face, clenching his fist and saying, “I got more guys coming. … Do you want to be next?” according to the complaint.
In the TMZ video, the voice can be heard saying, “Shut up before I knock your (expletive) out next.”
Revis did not throw punches or make violent threats and “surely did not ‘rob' another of a cell phone,” Del Greco and Fiorilli said.
“We have no doubt that further investigation relative to the clothing and voice verification will corroborate the above assertions,” they said.
The video released by TMZ does not match the description of a video that police obtained from Cousins' phone.
That footage, captured at 2:29 a.m., shows a man who appears to be Revis “becoming hostile towards Cousins and his friends,” the complaint said. It shows the man believed to be Revis walking away and standing in front of White Eagle bar repeatedly stating, “Why are you following me?” Then it cuts out.
Law enforcement officials have not released any videos.
No one else has been charged.
Revis is scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning.
Natasha Lindstrom is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-380-8514 or nlindstrom@tribweb.com.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
