Hurricanes reinstating Williams after felony charges dropped
The Miami Hurricanes football program is reinstating Avantae Williams, according to the player’s lawyer, one month after he was dismissed from the program after being arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.
Those felony charges, which Williams pleaded not guilty to before being released with a restraining order against him and under house arrest, were dropped last Friday with the state attorney’s office closing the case, according to records from Miami-Dade County’s Clerk of the Courts.
“I was informed that Miami will reinstate Avantae,” Michael Etienne Jr., Williams’ lawyer, said in an emailed statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday. “Compliments to Coach Manny Diaz, Assistant Recruiting Director Edwin Pata, the Athletic Director, and the entire UM administration. Now that this chapter is finally over, let’s wish Avantae and his UM teammates well as they forge ahead.”
Attempts to reach the UM athletic department to confirm Etienne’s account were not immediately successful.
Diaz told reporters on Monday that the program was contemplating whether it should allow Williams to rejoin the team.
“We’re trying to get the documents in,” Diaz said at the time, “so we can have all the information so that the decision-makers can make the best decision with all the information available.”
Williams was dismissed from the program on July 22 after he was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated battery on his pregnant ex-girlfriend earlier that week, according to Miami-Dade County’s arrest records.
A copy of the arrest affidavit from July stated Williams got into a “verbal dispute” with his ex-girlfriend on July 21 before telling her to leave the apartment they lived in together. The police report stated Williams grabbed her multiple times, threw her to the floor and threw her to the ground outside of their residence, causing her “to hit her head.” Williams’ ex-girlfriend, according to the police report, was transported to a hospital for further evaluation after sustaining “multiple” bruises to her arms and neck and having two broken fingernails.
The final memo on the case, which was obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Monday, said the victim was recanting and no longer cooperating with prosecutors, so the case was being closed.
Williams, a 20-year-old DeLand native, was Miami’s top recruit in its 2020 recruiting class and was listed as the No. 1 safety prospect in the 2020 recruiting class by Rivals.
He had to sit out his freshman season in 2020 due to unspecified “chronic and lingering medical issues” that Miami’s medical staff found in the preseason, according to Diaz.
Williams was medically cleared for football activities in March and participated in spring practices with the expectation he’d play in 2021 for the Hurricanes, who open their season against Alabama, the defending national champions, on Sept. 4 at MercedesBenz Stadium in Atlanta.