As we know, Minnesota Vikings cornerback Jeff Gladney was arrested back in April on charges stemming from a fight that he had with his girlfriend. There really hasn’t been a whole lot said about things since then, as Gladney stayed away (or was kept away) from the Vikings’ offseason team activities with his situation being what it was.
We’re now a little bit closer to getting some clarity on that situation, as Brian Murphy of Purple Insider is reporting that prosecutors will present the case against Gladney to a grand jury in Texas on Thursday, 22 July. For those unfamiliar with the grand jury process, here’s a brief explanation of it from Murphy.
During the indictment process, only prosecutors can present evidence. In order to secure an indictment, nine of 12 jurors are needed and the results are announced within two days. If he’s indicted, Gladney would have to be arraigned in court and have a trial date set.
This is basically to see if the evidence against Gladney is strong enough to go ahead with a full-blown court proceeding.
At some point, regardless if Gladney is indicted or not, I’m assuming that the team and/or the league is going to take some sort of action against the second-year corner. I’m actually somewhat surprised that he’s not already on the Commissioner’s Exempt list or something like that, but maybe they’re waiting for the grand jury to make their decision before making any sort of decision on that.
The Vikings start Training Camp on 28 July, less than a week after Gladney’s grand jury hearing. The odds of Gladney being there look to be a long shot at best, but that’s obviously second to the real world concerns of what’s happening in this case.
Once we hear more about the situation with Jeff Gladney, we’ll bring it to you here.