Woman accused Mark Walton of attack before he signed with Dolphins. Cops didn’t arrest him

In March, a woman told police that her longtime boyfriend, after an argument, punched her repeatedly as they drove through Miami Gardens. When she escaped his Jaguar, he dragged her by the foot back to the car, punching her again and again, badly enough that it left her lip swollen and bleeding, she said.

That boyfriend was Mark Walton, the troubled NFL running back who was later signed by the Miami Dolphins.

But nearly 10 months later, Miami Gardens police detectives have yet to interview Jasmin Thompson about the incident. Her attorney told the Miami Herald a detective didn’t even try to schedule a time to speak to her until November, after Walton was cuffed in Davie for allegedly punching her in the face and head — an arrest that spurred the Dolphins to cut the running back.

The Miami Gardens police department has kept the ongoing probe quiet.

The Miami Dolphins said the team didn’t know about the allegations when the team signed him in May. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which this past summer prosecuted Walton for three separate criminal cases, didn’t know about the case until the Miami Herald inquired this week.

And the police department has declined to release a report about the case, saying the case remains an “active criminal investigation.”

The Miami Gardens police department, in a statement released late Thursday, said: “We are actively working this case. We have made numerous contact attempts with the victim and are currently working with the victim’s attorney.”

Whether Thompson still wants to cooperate against Walton, who is awaiting trial in Broward County for the Davie case, remained unclear Thursday.

The delay raises questions about the handling of the case by the Miami Gardens police department — to which Walton has ties. Walton’s godfather and former little-league football coach, Sean Horne, is a Miami Gardens police officer. Walton, in his arrest in Davie in November, even listed Horne’s home address as his permanent address.

Although the incident report remains secret, the Miami Gardens domestic-violence allegations were detailed in a recently filed paternity lawsuit against Walton. His defense attorney, Michael Gottlieb, declined to comment Thursday on the March allegations but has previously said his client was innocent of the charges against him in Davie.

Walton remains living in South Florida, hoping to get back into football, Gottlieb said.

Walton, 22, is a former University of Miami star running back who was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the fourth round of the 2018 draft. But the team cut him after he picked up three arrests in Miami-Dade during the off-season.

The first, in January, was a minor marijuana possession charge. Then on Feb. 16, Miami police said, Walton snatched a phone from a neighbor at his Brickell condo building during an argument in a parking garage. He was charged with misdemeanor battery for the ensuing scuffle.

Finally, Walton was charged with felony counts of carrying a concealed weapon, marijuana possession and reckless driving stemming from a high-speed car chase that happened on the night of March 12 in North Miami-Dade. During the arrest, Walton was shot with a police stun gun.

In May, while the cases were pending in Miami-Dade court, the Dolphins signed Walton. “I think people deserve a second chance,” head coach Brian Flores told the media at the time.

In recent years, critics have assailed the NFL’s handling of players accused of domestic violence, leading the league to mete out harsher disciplines. But when Miami signed Walton, the team did not know about the accusations that he beat up his girlfriend in Miami Gardens.

“The team was not aware,” a team spokesman said Tuesday.

By August, as training camp was underway, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office struck a plea deal with Walton, who accepted a term of six months of “administrative” probation, which meant he did not have to report to a probation officer.

(The sentence was technically illegal because, under Florida law, judges didn’t have the authority to give administrative probation. Prosecutors later acknowledged they allowed an illegal sentence. A Miami-Dade judge, less than one month after Walton agreed to the plea deal, vacated the probation.)

Prosecutors would likely not have offered him the same plea deal had they known about the domestic-violence allegations that were — on paper anyway — under investigation in Miami Gardens.

“We were unaware of any other possible investigation of Walton at the time the case was closed,” said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office.

During the fall, Walton’s football career began to blossom. He won the Dolphins’ starting running back job, and was leading the team in rushing before the league suspended him for four games because of the previous three criminal cases, a move that had been expected.

But Walton’s career was derailed again in November, when Davie police arrested him on a charge of aggravated battery of a pregnant woman. The victim was Thompson, his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his daughter born in 2017.

According to a police report, Thompson told Walton she was again pregnant. Two days later, during an argument, he responded by pushing her against a wall and “punched her several times in the face and head,” according to the report.

His defense lawyer denied that Walton ever struck Thompson.

In the March case, Thompson — the victim whose lip was busted in the attack — initially wanted to press charges, said her lawyer, Patrick McGeehan. She gave a statement to patrol officers that night in March. Although a detective was assigned to the case, the case languished for at least eight months, he said.

“As a former police officer, it strikes me as very weird,” McGeehan said of the delay.

He said that after Walton’s arrest in November, a Miami Gardens detective called to set up an interview with Thompson. The interview has yet to happen, and McGeehan said it was unclear Thursday if his client wants to proceed.

Thompson has since filed a paternity suit in Broward County circuit court. In the Davie case, Walton has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

This story has been updated with a statement from the Miami Gardens police department.

This story was originally published January 2, 2020 at 12:14 PM.