Report: NFL was sent copy of Rice tape

Sep 10, 2014 - 11:16 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - Responding to a new report, the NFL says in a statement it has "no knowledge" of a tape being sent to a league executive months ago that shows Ray Rice hitting his then-fiancee in a casino elevator.

"We have no knowledge of this. We are not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on Monday. We will look into it," the NFL says in the statement.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that a law enforcement official says he sent a copy of the video to an NFL executive five months ago.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, played the AP a 12-second voicemail from an NFL office number in which a woman confirms the video arrived and says: "You're right. It's terrible." The official said he had no further communication with any NFL employee and can't confirm if anyone else watched it.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said no one at the league saw the video until this week -- when TMZ posted it online -- because the league was unable to legally obtain it from various law enforcement agencies that were not permitted to share it.

He said the league asked those law enforcement agencies for the video, but not the casino because doing so would put a would-be leaker in legal trouble and jeopardize the league's punishment of Rice.

The video shows Rice hitting Janay Palmer in the face inside the since-closed Revel Casino in Atlantic City. She is apparently knocked unconscious after her head hits a railing inside the elevator.

The couple has since married. Janay Rice defended her husband in an online post Tuesday after the running back was released by the Baltimore Ravens, saying they are living a "nightmare" and calling all the attention from the media and public "unwanted."

Rice, a three-time Pro Bowl running back, avoided prosecution over the altercation after entering into a pretrial intervention program. The charges against him will be expunged from his record upon successful completion of the one-year program.

Another video, posted by TMZ shortly after the incident, showed Rice dragging Palmer out of the elevator, apparently unconscious. He was originally suspended two games by the NFL and fined three game checks, a penalty widely seen as lenient.

The league later responded by instituting harsher penalties for its employees and players over domestic violence cases, with Goodell saying he "didn't get it right" when he issued his initial suspension.

After TMZ posted another video Monday that showed the altercation inside the elevator, the Ravens cut Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.

Goodell stressed that no one in the league office had seen the tape, telling CBS News on Tuesday: "We had not seen any videotape of what occurred in the elevator. We assumed that there was a video, we asked for video, but we were never granted that opportunity."

In a memo Goodell wrote to teams about the scrutiny surrounding the case, the commissioner again states no one in the league office had seen the tape.

"First, we did not see video of what took place inside the elevator until it was publicly released on Monday," Goodell says in the memo. "When the new video evidence became available, we acted promptly and imposed an indefinite suspension on Mr. Rice."

He said the league first requested the video in February, after the incident, and again after Rice entered his pre-trial diversion program.

The AP says the voicemail from an NFL official played by its law enforcement source is from April 9.

Goodell has seen calls for his job increase. The National Organization for Women (NOW) asked him to resign and started an online petition for visitors to sign in support.

NOW president Terry O'Neill said in a statement on Tuesday, "The NFL has lost its way."

"It doesn't have a Ray Rice problem; it has a violence against women problem," she said.

"The only workable solution is for Roger Goodell to resign, and for his successor to appoint an independent investigator with full authority to gather factual data about domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking within the NFL community, and to recommend real and lasting reforms,"

The political website TheHill.com quoted Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) as saying Goodell should resign.

"I think he should consider it seriously," Heitkamp told the website.

Goodell has been commissioner of the NFL since Sept. 1, 2006.