http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/peeler-defense-player-guilty-plea-improved-draft-spot-article-1.803922
S. District Court tomorrow, six years later, the defendant in a civil case in St. Louis. Barring a last-minute settlement in a long, contentious battle, the woman will seek damages for assault, battery and false imprisonment before a jury in the courtroom of Judge Charles Shaw. Peeler's attorney and business representative, Bradley Marshall from Seattle, has prepared a unique defense: Peeler pleaded guilty in 1992 even though he was innocent, just so that he could get the matter out of the way and be drafted higher. "If this happened any other time, no way could his career have been used as a leverage," said Marshall, who says he may re-open a defamation suit against the woman if he wins this case. "The timing left him with no choice. He had to plead guilty to something he didn't do, in order to achieve a lifelong dream."
In depositions from Peeler and the woman, obtained by The News, there are striking differences in the recounting of what happened on May 30, 1992. In a deposition from 1995, the woman paints a horrifying experience inside her apartment. "He (Peeler) bit me and he choked me, and that's when I was crying. Then he pulled out a gun and stuck it to my head . . . It happened so fast . . . He pointed it at this side (right) of my head. And just said I don't know his exact words because I was terrified at that point and . . . he just kept saying, why am I going out without him?
" Peeler denies that the woman, a communications major at Missouri living in Georgia, was a serious girlfriend. He says she was jealous. "I went to (the woman's) bedroom for like five minutes and then I left. She was crying, 'Don't leave,' but I still left," Peeler said, in a deposition.