Chris Keane/AP
In the transcripts published by Diana Moskovitz of Deadspin, attorney Frank Maister aimed to discredit statements made by Hardy's former girlfriend Nicole Holder, who accused the NFL player of assault.
Holder and her friend Kristina Laurence (the prosecution's primary witness) both said Hardy threw Holder into a bathtub before dragging her out and throwing her onto a futon covered with his guns. However, in the NFL reinstatement hearing, Maister claimed that Holder must have somehow fallen into the tub on her own.
According to the documents, Maister shared a personal anecdote from his visit to Hardy's bathroom during which he said he tripped on a scale and nearly fell over. Here's Maister's argument regarding the tub:
Now ... it appears that [Holder] jumped into the bathtub or she flung herself into the tub. I cannot prove how she got into that tub, but I will tell you this. I went into that bathroom and I went in and I looked around and I wanted to see it. There is a scale that you weigh yourself on here in the corner of this picture (indicating).
...
There is a scale on the floor there. And when I went into the bathroom and this is just me, I turned around and I hit my heel on the back of that scale. And it is my absolute sincere belief that she tripped backwards over the scale and fell backwards, either up against the wall (indicating), but like, you know, like you would do and then it's only a short area so she held herself (indicating). And I cannot prove that that's what happened. But she ended up in the bathtub.
Later in the hearing, Maister brought up the sex lives of both Holder and Laurence to discredit Holder's accusation of domestic violence. This, as Mozkovitz noted, was a tactic also used by Hardy's lawyers during the trial. At one point during Holder's testimony, Chris Fialko, Hardy's other lawyer, asked Holder, "What really happened is that Greg Hardy refused to sleep with you, refused to reconcile with you, and you went berserk, didn't you?"
In Hardy's reinstatement hearing, Maister said on the night of the arrest Holder ran from the cops and initially refused a statement, whereas Hardy himself had earlier called the police and waited for their arrival:
So let's recap. Greg Hardy calls the police. Greg Hardy tells 911 he has been attacked in his own home. Nicole Holder flees the apartment. Nicole Holder sees the police. Nicole Holder runs away from the police. Nicole Holder refuses to give the police a statement and they arrest this guy (indicating).
Where? how? What? What? He sits in his apartment and waits for the police to come up. She runs away from the police.
Holder's injury report from the night of the arrest was a key subject of the reinstatement hearing, particularly injuries to her elbows. Maister paid close attention to Holder's right elbow, which was not injured and which Maister used to argue that Holder was embellishing the claims of domestic violence.
However, when asked by NFL Senior Vice President Adolfo Birch about her left elbow (the elbow that was reportedly fractured on the night of Hardy's arrest), Maister apologized for neglecting to bring that part of the injury report but gave his word that there were no injuries.
From the testimony (via Mozkovitz):
Mr. Birch: Can I stop you before you get there; I'm sorry. I saw the right elbow. Was there a left elbow?
Mr. Maister: You know what? There was and I think I left it out. I assure you, I give you my word and, of course, I will send it to you, negative, negative, negative, negative, okay. They reported a left elbow.
Mr. Birch: I think most of the stuff that was discussed about was the left.
Mr. Maister: Well-spotted. All right, I will get back to you on that. I assure you there were no fractures. They reported left elbow sprain.
Other moments from the hearing show Maister trying to discredit the judge who initially convicted Hardy because she had co-chaired a battered women's advocacy group while in law school. Prosecutors ultimately dropped charges against Hardy right before an appeal was set to begin.
According to Mozkovitz, a second meeting took place less than a week later between Hardy, Maister, and an NFL senior advisor (and now Vice President and special counsel for investigations) Lisa Friel, "whose job once made her essentially an advocate for domestic violence victims." Mozkovitz notes that the subject of this meeting is unknown.
In the end, Hardy received a 10-game suspension, which was unprecedented for a non-drug or PED offense, and was reinstated into the NFL. From Mozkovitz:
As a result of the hearing, Roger Goodell reinstated Greg Hardy to the NFL and gave him a 10-game ban. That suspension was knocked down to four games on appeal; Goodell's hand-picked arbitrator ruled that 10 games was "simply too much."
We have reached out to the NFL and to Hardy's attorney for comment.
We have also reached out to Holder's attorney for comment.