Amid legal review, Conley starts job
While his lawyer said it will take six to eight weeks for prosecutors to review the rape allegations against cornerback Gareon Conley, the Raiders’ rookie said Friday that he isn’t aware of a timeline to clear his name.
He will just show up to work and focus on football.
Conley participated in the start of the team’s three-day rookie camp just four days after the first-round draft pick was in Cleveland to meet with police in what he called “another way to prove my innocence.”
Conley gave a statement and provided a DNA sample to police and again denied the accuser’s allegations that he raped her at the Cleveland Westin hotel April 9. No charges have been pressed, and Conley’s lawyer, Kevin Spellacy, told the NFL Network on Monday that Conley and the woman had a “con-
sensual sexual event.”
Conley said the visit with police Monday went well.
“I felt like it went good,” Conley said. “There’s not more to say about that. We’ll just find out what happens after this.”
He is trying to focus on football.
“It’s tough to think about it,” Conley said, “but I try not to think about it and just worry about what I’m doing out here.”
Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio deferred any questions about Conley’s case to general manager Reggie McKenzie. Last week both men said they were confident in the research that the team had done and believed Conley would be cleared.
One of the reasons for that belief is that Conley had two witnesses in the room — both close friends — when the incident happened.
But it appears that the statements Myles Poole and Tyler Thompson gave to police weren’t entirely true. Poole’s statement that Conley “never touched her” appears inconsistent with Spellacy’s account of a nonintercourse consensual “event.”
In his statement to police, Poole said, “The white girl got mad because she got kicked out of the room.” Thompson also said, “Nothing happened,” even though he said in his statement that the couple were in bed together.
A day before the NFL draft last week, Conley issued a statement denying the accusations and said his friends “have given statements that give an accurate account of what took place.”
Conley, meanwhile, worked at both outside and inside cornerback spots at Friday’s rookie camp practice.
“We’re going to learn all that we can about him,” Del Rio said. “Gareon, we think he’s a talent. We think he can play inside and outside. We’ll see what the best combination for us is and just let him come in and compete.”
Conley said he’s comfortable playing outside and in the slot against inside receivers.
“It’s just a mentality,” Conley said. “I felt like inside, it’s a game of leverage, and outside is more of just man-to-man techniques. Inside, you’ve got to be outside leverage or inside leverage, depending on your help, so I feel like people who learn that will be able to play both.”
Before practice, the team announced the signing of 17 undrafted free agents, with one sticking out because of his talent and a disturbing red flag, which got him uninvited to the NFL combine.
Ishmael Zamora had 63 catches for 809 yards and eight touchdowns for Baylor last year, despite being suspended for three games for being caught on video whipping his dog eight times with a belt. He then kicked the animal after yelling at it.
Zamora and McKenzie were unavailable to reporters on Friday.