The lawyer for Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice tried to get out in front of the blowback from the civil suit filed against Rice that contained allegations of domestic abuse, referring to the allegations as a “verbal argument” in a statement about the filing. The report on his response was written by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, and the statement reads as follows:
“On October 9th, 2025, well after the parties’ relationship had ended, Ms. Jones stated under penalty of perjury in a sworn Affidavit for Non-Prosecution that ‘Mr. Rice and I had a verbal argument, but he did not punch me,’” attorney Sean Lindsey said, via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com. “We will allow the legal process to run its course and will have no further comment at this time.”
Florio used his background as a lawyer to poke holes in the logic of Lindsey’s statement, although anyone with the ability to read and think critically can at least make some headway in that regard.
Florio’s primary question was about the specific context of the creation of the affidavit, and the legal use of the term “non-prosecution,” which he says indicates that there was some sort of potential criminal action against Rice that was resolved with Ms. [Dacota] Jones signing the affidavit.
There are some specific legal details missing as well, Florio added, including how the affidavit came to be, who wrote it, the circumstances when it was signed, and whether Jones was represented by counsel when that happened.
The logical part of this that virtually anyone can see through is that the affidavit regrets to one incident, which was a verbal argument. The original filing referred to multiple actions taken by Rice over the course of the time he and Jones lived together, a period which began in 2023 and was apparently terminated in July of last year.
Florio’s lawyerly take on this is that Rice’s lawyers will try to use the affidavit to secure a dismissal of the complaint, or perhaps initiate a perjury prosecution of Jones if the differences in their accounts are sharp enough to justify that.
For the moment, it’s all about PR, as Florio notes. Lindsey is using the power of Rice’s large following in multiple social media accounts to discredit the victim. The Chiefs haven’t issued a statement about any of this to date, so it will be interesting to see if they back their star receiver. That will probably happen by the end of the week, most likely in a Friday evening news drop to make the announcement as invisible as possible.