Broncos' Marshall set for ESPN interview about domestic violence charges

Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall will appear on ESPN’s Outside the Lines Sunday at 7 a.m. Mountain time.

Marshall will be discussing the allegations of domestic violence brought by his former fiance, Rasheedah Watley. Watley first filed a report in June 2006, not long after the Broncos selected Marshall in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft out of Central Florida.

Watley declined to press charges until March 2008, when police allegedly found her with “several cuts on her lip” in the couple’s condo in Atlanta. Watley’s mother, Vienna Watley, told Outside the Lines’ John Barr that she was contacted by a member of the Broncos’ organization almost two years ago. The nature of the phone call was apparently an attempt to get Vienna Watley to persuade her daughter to patch things up with Marshall following his March 2007 arrest for false imprisonment and domestic violence.

This will be the first time Rasheedah Watley has spoken publicly about her relationship with Marshall. Outside the Lines has conducted interviews and obtained police reports pertaining to seven separate accounts of alleged domestic violence spanning two years and three states, as well as Puerto Rico.

When asked about filing the charges that have led to Marshall’s June 2009 trial, Rasheedah Watley said, “I don’t want to see him do it to nobody else. And that’s really why I’m doing this today because I feel like somebody has to stand up and stop him from doing this, because the Broncos haven’t done it. The NFL hasn’t done it. The Atlanta Police Department hasn’t done it. Somebody has to do it.”

In 2008, Marshall was originally given a three-game suspension by the NFL but was able to cut that number to only one game following an appeal. He could face a similar, or possibly harsher, fate this season pending the results of next month’s trial.