Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Domestic Abuse Rears its Ugly Head Again in the NFL

Once again, the NFL is in the news for a domestic violence issue. This time, the player involved is New York Giants kicker Josh Brown. In 2015, Brown was arrested for a domestic violence charge. According to public records, Brown was arrested on a fourth degree domestic violence charge after he grabbed his wife’s wrist while she was attempting to call the police during a quarrel. After a 10-month investigation into the matter, the NFL had suspended Brown for one game after the incident. The charge was later dropped and the couple soon divorced.

However, new evidence has just been released by the police that shows that Brown had admitted to being “physically, emotionally and verbally” abusive to his wife and saw her as his slave. “I viewed myself as God basically and she was my slave,” Brown wrote in a journal entry released by the police. “I carried an overwhelming sense of entitlement because I put money higher than God and I used it as a power tool.”

As this evidence clearly shows, not all domestic abuse is physical. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 48.4 percent of women and 48.8 percent of men have experienced at least one psychologically aggressive behavior by an intimate partner. In addition, 4 in 10 women and men have experienced at least one form of coercive control by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And normally, psychological abuse is hand-in-hand with physical violence — 95 percent of men who physically abuse their intimate partners also psychologically abuse them.

According to the Giants and the league, they were unaware of this material previously and the investigation has been reopened. Meanwhile, Brown has been put on suspension with pay.

This weekend, the New York Times posted a scathing article against the NFL and its lack of action on domestic violence: “If the N.F.L. has studied domestic violence cases at all since the Ray Rice debacle two years ago, it should know that putting the onus on an abused woman to make the case against her abuser — to the abuser’s employer, no less — is not exactly considered best practice.”

Currently, NFL’s “new” domestic violence policy calls for a six-game suspension without pay for a first-time offender and a more severe penalty if the act was against a pregnant woman or in the presence of a child. But is this really a tough enough penalty? We’ll soon see what happens next with the NFL domestic violence policies.

If you are a victim of domestic violence, there is help. Contact the Law Offices of Anthony Carbone now for a free consultation.

What the NFL Cases Reveal About How Power Distorts Accountability

High-profile cases like the ones involving NFL players do something useful that individual cases rarely achieve: they force a public conversation about dynamics that typically remain hidden inside private relationships. The pattern that appeared repeatedly in these situations — an incident is reported, an investigation proceeds slowly, consequences are minimal, and the full scope of the abuse only emerges later when records are made public — mirrors what happens in thousands of less-visible domestic violence cases every year.

The journal entry described above is a document that goes far beyond an isolated incident of grabbing a wrist. It describes a sustained worldview in which one person in a relationship holds absolute dominance over another, uses economic power as an instrument of control, and constructs a psychological framework that justifies that control as natural and deserved. This is the architecture of coercive control, and it is the form of domestic abuse that is hardest to see from the outside and hardest for victims to name as abuse while they are living inside it.

When an abuser holds significant financial resources and social status, as professional athletes often do, those advantages become tools in the abuse itself and barriers to accountability afterward. A victim who is financially dependent on the abuser faces the reality that leaving may mean losing access to housing, income, and security. A victim who knows that reporting will be met with skepticism — because the abuser is famous, because the abuser presents a carefully maintained public image, or because the victim’s own credibility will be challenged — faces a calculation about coming forward that most observers do not fully appreciate.

What Coercive Control Looks Like in Practice

The phrase “coercive control” appears increasingly in discussions of domestic violence policy and law, but it is worth explaining what it actually describes in the context of real relationships. Coercive control is a pattern of behavior rather than a single incident. It involves a persistent effort by one partner to limit the other’s autonomy, monitor their movements, restrict their access to people and resources, and enforce compliance through a combination of fear, manipulation, and isolation.

Physical violence, when it occurs in a coercive control relationship, is often the most visible element of a much larger pattern. But it is frequently not the most damaging. Survivors who are no longer subject to physical violence but who remain under a partner’s coercive control describe the experience as one of profound restriction, in which every decision, interaction, and movement is monitored and subject to punishment. Financial control — controlling access to bank accounts, monitoring spending, preventing employment — is a common element. Social isolation — limiting contact with family and friends, creating dependency on the abuser as the primary relationship — is another.

New Jersey’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act recognizes a range of behaviors as predicate acts that qualify as domestic violence. Harassment, stalking, criminal restraint, and terroristic threats can each apply to forms of psychological and coercive abuse that do not involve physical contact. A victim who has experienced sustained coercive control may have legal grounds for a restraining order and related protective measures even in the absence of a single dramatic physical incident.

October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the timing of the NFL stories that originally prompted this post reflects the national conversation that takes place every October about the scale, nature, and legal framework surrounding intimate partner violence. That awareness campaign matters because it reaches people who may not otherwise encounter information about the resources and legal protections available to them.

Awareness alone, however, is not enough for someone who is currently in a dangerous relationship or who has recently left one. What survivors and their families need to understand is how the legal system in New Jersey actually works, what it can and cannot do, and how to access its protections quickly when safety is at stake.

How New Jersey Law Addresses Psychological and Coercive Abuse

Many survivors hesitate to seek legal help because they believe the system only responds to physical violence. The truth is more nuanced. New Jersey courts regularly enter temporary and final restraining orders based on patterns of harassment, stalking, threats, and coercive behavior that, in isolation, might not appear dramatic but in context represent a serious and ongoing danger to the victim.

Harassment under New Jersey law can be established through a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to experience fear or significant emotional distress. Repeated unwanted contacts, monitoring of a partner’s location through shared accounts or tracking technology, showing up uninvited at places the victim frequents, and using financial control to prevent the victim from leaving can all factor into a court’s assessment of whether a restraining order is warranted.

Stalking is another predicate act under the Act that courts take seriously in the context of coercive relationships. Stalking is defined in New Jersey as purposely or knowingly engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily injury or death, or to suffer other significant mental anguish. A pattern of surveillance, unwanted contact, and presence that creates that kind of fear, even without a specific threat, can support both a restraining order and a criminal stalking charge.

The Legal Process for Victims in New Jersey

For survivors who are ready to seek legal protection, understanding the process helps reduce the uncertainty that often keeps people from taking the first step.

A temporary restraining order, called a TRO, can be obtained at any time of day or night in New Jersey. During court hours, the application is made at the Family Part of the Superior Court in the county where the victim lives, works, or where the abuse occurred. Outside of court hours, a duty judge is available and can issue a TRO by phone. Law enforcement can also issue a TRO at the scene of a domestic violence incident. The process for obtaining a TRO does not require an attorney, though having legal guidance helps ensure that the application documents the relevant conduct effectively.

Once a TRO is issued, it goes into effect immediately. It can require the abuser to leave the shared home, prohibit all contact with the victim and any named children, require the surrender of firearms, and establish temporary custody and support arrangements. Within ten days, the court schedules a final restraining order hearing at which both parties appear before a judge. The judge hears testimony and determines whether the abuse occurred and whether ongoing legal protection is needed.

A final restraining order in New Jersey has no expiration date. It is a permanent civil court order that remains in effect unless vacated through a separate proceeding. Violating it is a criminal offense. It is entered into law enforcement databases so that any officer responding to a future call involving the parties has immediate notice that the order exists.

The Evidence That Matters in a Restraining Order Case

Building a strong case for a final restraining order requires evidence. The more thoroughly the victim can document the pattern of abuse — not just the most recent incident — the stronger the case the court will hear.

Text messages, voicemails, emails, and social media communications that reflect threatening, controlling, or harassing behavior are some of the most useful evidence in these cases. Screenshots of messages should be preserved in a way that shows the sender’s identity and the date and time of the communication. Medical records documenting injuries from physical incidents, even those that occurred in the past, can be part of the evidentiary picture. Photographs of injuries, damaged property, and the physical environment where abuse occurred can be relevant. Witness accounts from people who observed incidents or who were present when the victim reported the abuse to them can support the victim’s testimony.

Financial records that document economic control — accounts where the victim’s access was restricted, evidence that the abuser controlled all assets, documentation of threats related to financial support — can illustrate the coercive dimensions of the relationship beyond what the physical incidents alone would show.

A New Jersey Domestic Violence Attorney can help a survivor organize this evidence, prepare for what to expect at the final restraining order hearing, and address the legal dimensions of any related custody or support matters that arise in connection with the restraining order proceeding.

For Those Who Are Ready to Take That Step

The question the original post poses about whether the NFL’s penalties are tough enough is one that reflects a broader reality: institutions, whether professional sports leagues or workplaces or community organizations, often fail the people harmed by domestic violence in their midst. The legal system in New Jersey, whatever its imperfections, offers mechanisms for protection that do not depend on an employer taking action, a league conducting an investigation, or a powerful person deciding whether the matter is worth addressing.

If you are a victim of domestic violence, there is help. Contact the Law Offices of Anthony Carbone now for a free consultation.