JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — Police say Arizona Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer broke his wife’s nose with a head-butt during an argument that began after she learned about his recent phone contact with another woman.
Search-warrant records made public Tuesday say the July 21 argument came after Dwyer’s wife came to believe her husband was cheating. Dwyer was arrested last week after his wife told police her husband assaulted her on July 21 and 22 at their Phoenix apartment.
The arrest came at a time when the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell are under fire over a series of violent off-the-field encounters involving some marquee players, including Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy.
The NFL has said the Dwyer case will be reviewed under the league’s personal-conduct policy. The day after his arrest, the Cardinals placed Dwyer on the reserve/non-football illness list, meaning he can’t play for Arizona again this season.
Dwyer is charged with aggravated assault, misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct, criminal damage and preventing the use of a telephone during an emergency. Messages left for his lawyer, Jared Allen, weren’t immediately returned Tuesday.
Dwyer is scheduled for a status conference on Oct. 6 and an Oct. 9 preliminary hearing.
In the first encounter, police say Dwyer attempted to kiss and undress his wife, but she refused. Someone who heard the argument called police, who showed up at the apartment but did not make an arrest.
Dwyer hid in a shower and his wife said she hadn’t been assaulted and denied he was in the home because the running back threatened to kill himself in front of her and their child if she told police about the assault, police said.
The next day, Dwyer punched his wife in the face and threw a shoe at her and instead struck their 17-month-old son, whom she was holding, police said. The child wasn’t injured.
As his wife tried to call police, Dwyer grabbed her cellphone and threw it down from the apartment’s second story, police said.
During a police interview, Dwyer acknowledged hiding in the bathroom when police responded to the first argument and sending a photo of a knife with suicidal threats after the first argument. Dwyer denied committing an assault, though he acknowledged that he punched walls in his home, threw a phone and that his wife bit his lip during the disputes, according to a police report.
The subject of the second argument is unknown.
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