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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Jeremy Stephens' camp has reiterated what they told Dana White regarding his arrest on Friday. In an interview with ESPN.com, a member of Stephens' camp stated that the UFC lightweight was not aware of an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and maintains that it was not he who committed the alleged assault.
"Jeremy knew that he did nothing involved in this case, nor did he anticipate this ever to come back on him," Stephens' team member stated. "Jeremy would have handled this immediately if [Des Moines police] contacted him or he [had] a way to know he had a warrant for his friend assaulting someone at his party."
The timing of the arrest caused Stephens to miss his bout against Yves Edwards on Friday's UFC on FX 5 event. UFC President Dana White attempted to work out a deal to get him out of jail, but he remained in custody as of Saturday. Additionally, his team believes he won't have a chance to be released until Tuesday at the earliest due to Monday being Columbus Day.
Penick's Analysis: Stephens is innocent until proven guilty, and if he's telling the truth about the case then he certainly wouldn't have believed a warrant would be out for him. And as White said, if he were aware of a warrant it would have been very stupid to take a fight and be in public in such a way as to be easily found. Regardless, he's in a really bad situation right now, and it's not going to come to an end very soon, or very easily.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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