Another sign Quinton Dunbar may not be with Seahawks for camp start: he changes attorneys
Signs are piling up that Quinton Dunbar won’t be with the Seahawks when they begin the preseason.
Two days after the New York Daily News reported the alleged payoff of victims to change their stories in the Miami office of Dunbar’s defense attorney, that attorney withdrew from Dunbar’s felony armed-robbery case.
Dunbar’s co-defense lawyer also withdrew from the case on Sunday.
Broward County, Fla., court records showed a stipulation for substitution of counsel filed Sunday. Michael Grieco and Michael D. Weinstein are out. Miami-based Andrew Rier and Jonathan Jordan are in as Dunbar’s new defense attorneys.
Also Sunday, Rier and Jordan served discovery requests on Dunbar’s behalf to the assistant state attorney’s office in Broward County, to access all records prosecutors have on the case.
Why?
On Friday the Daily News reported evidence it obtained from a warrant through public-records requests in Florida showed a cover-up and bribes to victims to change their stories they had given police that Dunbar and New York Giants cornerback DeAndre Baker robbed them at a house party in Miramar, Broward County, on May 13.
The Daily News reported the four victims allegedly got paid $55,000 combined to change their stories May 15 in Grieco’s office. That was two days after those victims had told a detective in the Miramar police department Dunbar and Baker robbed them of an $18,000 watch, $7,000 in cash and other valuables at a house party there May 13.
Grieco told The News Tribune May 15 and a judge in a state court judge in Broward County two days later the victims “completely” recanting their statements in affidavits to him exonerates Dunbar and that should result in prosecutors dropping the case.
Grieco denied the victims were paid to recant their stories they had given to police.
Now Grieco is out of the case.
State prosecutors in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have been reviewing evidence since a bond hearing May 17. Those prosecutors are deciding whether to begin a trial for Dunbar on four felony charges of robbery with a firearm in Florida’s 17th Circuit Court, and on additional charges for Baker.
A source in south Florida legal community with knowledge of Dunbar’s case told The News Tribune the delay in prosecutors deciding whether to go trial may partly be because a member of the trial-preparation team tested positive for the coronavirus.
Based on the warrant and police reports that led to Dunbar’s arrest and jail stay, release May 17 on $100,000 bond, the lone hearing in court so far plus this past weekend’s report of bribery, there seem to be only two things agreed upon by the Miramar police, the prosecution and the defense in this case: that Dunbar was at the party May 13; and the spelling of Dunbar’s name.
Essentially all other facts or truths in this case are in dispute. Save a out-of-nowhere plea bargain, this situation makes a trial—our legal system’s process to determine truth and the remedies of justice based upon those findings—seem certain.
And that makes Dunbar’s availability for the start of Seahawks training camp seem unlikely.
The Seahawks are scheduled to begin camp July 28 at their team headquarters in Renton, though coach Pete Carroll has said he favors delaying the start, if necessary. A delay would be to allow the NFL more time to perfect protocols for testing, tracing and distancing from the COVID-19 virus.
Dunbar’s agreement to be released from jail on bond stipulates he must stay in Florida while awaiting trial. Broward County court records from Friday show his attorneys, at the time Grieco and Weinstein, filed a request for the court’s permission for Dunbar to travel to Washington to participate in Seahawks training camp at the end of this month.
The defense team said this motion was unopposed by prosecutors. That was before the revelations in the Daily News Friday night about the alleged payments to victims.
As of Monday the court had not ruled on the request Dunbar be allowed to travel out of Florida for the start of Seahawks training camp.
Baker’s attorney, Bradford Cohen, posted on his Twitter page Friday night following the Daily News publishing its exclusive on the alleged payments to witnesses to change their stories: “This is shameful reporting. Without digging into facts in regards to Deandre Baker and that he was in his attorneys office the entire day.”
Patrick Patel, Baker’s New Jersey-based lawyer who is helping Cohen on the case, told the New York Post Saturday the warrant and the Daily News’ revelations about it “just made our case even stronger.”
Patel told the Post of the case: “if it’s not dismissed it’s gonna be won by a not-guilty, that’s for sure.”
Patel said he, Baker and Cohen were in Patel’s house in Fort Lauderdale during the social-media messaging the Daily News reported between Baker and witness Dominic Johnson, who has known Dunbar and Baker since they were kids in Miami and was at the house party. Patel told the Post he and Cohen were having Baker find out as much as they could from Johnson. Warrants and police reports call Johnson “Coach.”
“We were with DeAndre telling him, ‘Write him, ask him, what does he want, what times does he want to meet?’’’ Patel told the Post. “We were the ones who controlled the narrative. Baker had no intention of ever going (to Grieco’s office to meet with Johnson and the victims). He was just trying to solicit the information of the blackmail from Coach.’’
Whatever the truth, right now a trial seems imminent.
Then again, this case has been a string of surprises for two months.
This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 11:04 AM.
