Player from Miami Beach surfaces after arrest warrant, to testify in NFL stars’ trial
A pro football player from Miami Beach will cooperate after all in the trial of troubled but talented Oakland Raiders pass rusher Aldon Smith.
A Miami-Dade judge on Monday quashed an arrest warrant for Nick Moody, who last week failed to show up in court to assure he would testify against his former teammate in a California trial for DUI and leaving the scene of an accident.
On Friday, the judge issued the warrant for Moody, a former Florida State linebacker who had stopped answering e-mails, text messages and phone calls from prosecutors on both coasts. Had he returned to Miami, he could have been held in jail until authorities shipped him to California to testify.
Turns out Moody was in Los Angeles training for the upcoming NFL season and didn’t know of the warrant until the news was broken by the Miami Herald. Moody gave “various explanations” for blowing off the judge’s earlier order to appear, a prosecutor said.
“Mr. Moody made an error in judgment in not showing up,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Christine Zahralban told Judge Charles Johnson in asking that the warrant be removed.
Instead of returning to Miami to face the judge, prosecutors agreed to allow Moody to drive to Santa Clara from Los Angeles. On Saturday, he did just that, meeting with an assistant district attorney in Santa Clara to finalize his testimony on the stand.
Moody played with Smith in San Francisco. The two were together the day Smith was arrested in August on charges of driving drunk and hitting several cars in Santa Clara, California, according to court documents.
Smith’s trial starts May 2. Miami-Dade prosecutors, acting on behalf of counterparts in Santa Clara, had asked the judge earlier this month to order Moody to report to California to take the witness stand.
Smith, 26, was part of San Francisco’s feared defenses, but he was plagued by off-the-field troubles, which included a DUI arrest on Miami Beach. The team cut him loose after his August arrest.
He later signed with the cross-town Raiders, but cannot play again until November when he finishes a one-year league suspension. Moody, 26, played at Florida State and was a reserve linebacker after being drafted by the 49ers in the sixth round in 2013. He was cut weeks after Smith’s arrest.
This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Player from Miami Beach surfaces after arrest warrant, to testify in NFL stars’ trial."