The National Football League called in former FBI director Robert Mueller to examine how it pursued and handled evidence in the Ray Rice domestic violence case as pressure increased for the league to be more transparent about its original investigation, reports the Associated Press. The move came after AP reported that a law enforcement officer said he sent an NFL executive a video in April that showed Rice striking his then-fiancee at a casino. League commissioner Roger Goodell has maintained that no one in the NFL saw the video until it was released by TMZ Sports Monday.
Women’s organizations, members of Congress and players have called for more detail about the NFL’s handling of the Rice case. The law enforcement official who described sending the video to the NFL spoke on condition of anonymity. He said he sent the tape five months ago, and played a 12-second voicemail from an NFL office number on April 9 confirming the video arrived. A female voice expresses thanks and says: “You’re right. It’s terrible.” The video shows then-Baltimore Ravens running back Rice and Janay Palmer (now Janay Rice) shouting obscenities at each other, and she appears to spit at Rice right before he throws a brutal punch. Rice had been charged with felony aggravated assault, but in May he was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid jail time.