A domestic-violence charge was dismissed Thursday against Ray Rice, the former Baltimore Ravens running back who was captured on video knocking out his fiancée in an elevator last year.
Judge Michael A. Donio in Atlantic City, New Jersey, signed an order dismissing the charge after Rice completed a pretrial intervention program.
The program required Rice to submit to anger-management counseling and check in with a probation officer for a year. It allowed him to avoid formal prosecution on a charge of third-degree aggravated assault.
Rice was reinstated to the NFL after an arbitrator ruled that Commissioner Roger Goodell’s indefinite suspension of Rice was “arbitrary.” Rice has yet to sign with a team.
The commissioner first suspended Rice for two games after video emerged of Rice dragging Janay Palmer, his fiancée and now his wife, out of the elevator. He suspended Rice indefinitely after a second video emerged of the knockout punch.
The running back told The Baltimore Sun in February that the end of the intervention program would allow him “a refreshing start.”
“This year has gone by really fast. It’s been a year since the incident,” he said at the time. “Once May comes, I’ll be moving into my new house and I’ll sort of feel like a free man by then. You’re back to a fresh slate.”
Robert Mueller, the former head of the FBI, was hired by the NFL to review its handling of the case and concluded in January that the league should have conducted a more thorough investigation.
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— Emmanuelle Saliba and Erin McClam
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