By Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press- May 3, 2011
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Tennessee Titans backup quarterback Chris Simms wasn’t high, but a friend’s pot smoking got the player arrested on drugged-driving charges, the buddy told a jury Tuesday.
Charles Granatell ” a one-time Bryant University quarterback ” mentioned he was wholly accountable is to pot smell that after that stirred an executive to detain Simms. He mentioned he’d never seen Simms use the drug during the rounded off 12 years they’ve well known any other.
Indeed, Granatell mentioned Simms was nothing as well gratified at the scent in his SUV when he came back from a 10-minute end at a party: “Did you guys fume in here?” he asked, according to Granatell.
Simms, the 30-year-old son of one-time New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, has pleaded not guilty in the malfeasance case.
A military executive told jurors Simms done a tire-squealing spin only before a military seriousness checkpoint in descend Manhattan around 1 a.m. July 1. With a emanate of pot forthcoming from his Mercedes-Benz SUV, a “zombie”-like Simms slurred his words, walked unsteadily and mentioned there wasn’t any pot left in the automobile since “he smoked it all in the car,” the executive testified Monday.
An ethanol breath assessment came back negative, and Simms declined a urine assessment that could have shown drug use, if any.
Simms’ counsel says the executive misunderstood the quarterback adage “the man in the back chair smoked marijuana.”
Granatell was in the back chair with other Simms buddy after going out to cooking with Simms and his wife, Danielle. Granatell mentioned he’d smoked pot around 10 a.m. that sunrise and once again whilst Simms was out of the automobile to end by buddy Noel Ashman’s 40th birthday whack between cooking and dessert at a in style caf.
Simms didn’t fume anything at the party, and “he was very, really lucid. We had a long conversation, actually,” Ashman, a celebration upholder who has owned a few New York nightspots, told jurors Tuesday.
After Simms returned from wishing Ashman a cheerful birthday, his organisation done a rounded off 20-minute end for dessert, got back on the thoroughfare and was pulled over, Granatell said.
Through questioning, Manhattan helper neighborhood attorney Alexandra Glazer sharp out that Granatell hadn’t told military at the time that Granatell had been the one smoking pot.
“I didn’t obtain the luck to. … (Simms’ arrest) happened so fast,” Granatell said. “Go back and change it ” we would if we could.”
Granatell, right away a selling manager for a cosmetics-ingredient company, declined to criticism after his testimony.
Simms’ spouse didn’t testify. The panel of judges motionless jurors will be told that they can, but do not have to, figure out that her be evidence of wouldn’t have helped her husband’s defence.
Defence counsel attorney Harvey A. Steinberg mentioned Danielle Simms didn’t attest since she didn’t wish the promotion or “to have to be cross-examined about things that are dedicated to the marriage.”
New York law affords husbands and wives the supposed wedding special consideration of disappearing to attest about trusted communications between them. But the panel of judges mentioned the participation of the Simmses’ friends done their communications surrounding his detain non-confidential.
Chris Simms could face up to a year in prison if convicted in the malfeasance case. In January, he incited down an offer to prevent any prison time by pleading guilty to pushing whilst impaired, a non-criminal violation. His low mark would have enclosed a US$500 excellent and 5 days of residents service.
Besides the authorised consequences, a self-assurance or any guilty request that entailed revelation smoking pot could theme Simms to a postponement beneath NFL policies.
Simms proposed his vocation with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003. He has a 7-9 record in his 16 NFL vocation starts.
