Arrest warrant issued for Georgia star Jalen Carter
Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter. Credit: AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez
INDIANAPOLIS — Jalen Carter arrived at the NFL Combine as potentially the top pick in April’s NFL Draft. He left here Wednesday after an arrest warrant was issued for him by the Athens, Georgia, police department. He was charged with two misdemeanors for reckless driving and racing in an incident that occurred in January. In that crash, teammate Devin Willock, a Paramus Catholic graduate from New Milford, New Jersey, and Chandler LeCroy, a member of the recruiting staff at the University of Georgia, were killed.
Carter was scheduled to speak to reporters in Indianapolis on Wednesday. He did not do so. He did release a statement on Twitter, which read, in part: “It is my intention to return to Athens to answer the misdemeanor charges against me and to make certain that the complete and accurate truth is presented. There is no question in my mind that when all of the facts are known that I will be fully exonerated of any criminal wrongdoing.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicated Carter misled police about his proximity to the incident. After initially claiming he was a mile away from the accident, Carter gave an account that was reportedly inconsistent before telling investigators he was tailing LeCroy and Willock’s vehicle close enough to see the taillights, while also saying he was at one point side-by-side. The police said in a statement the drivers involved were “operating their vehicles in a manner consistent with racing.”
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Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
