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FRISCO, Texas — Federal judge Amos Mazzant on Friday granted a request by the NFL Players Association for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the implementation of the six-game suspension for Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott.
Elliott was already eligible to play in Sunday’s season opener against the New York Giants, but his suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy was to begin Monday. With the injunction granted, Elliott likely will be able to continue playing as the legal process plays out.
If the request had been denied, Elliott would have appealed to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to ask for an immediate stay.
“We are very pleased that Mr. Elliott will finally be given the opportunity to have an impartial decision-maker carefully examine the NFL’s misconduct,” Elliott’s attorneys said in a statement Friday night. “This is just the beginning of the unveiling of the NFL’s mishandling as it relates to Mr. Elliott’s suspension.”
On Aug. 11, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Elliott’s six-game suspension after the league found that he inflicted physical harm on former girlfriend Tiffany Thompson in July 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. Elliott has denied the claims.
Columbus authorities did not pursue charges against Elliott, but the league’s personal conduct policy has a lower burden of proof threshold than criminal convictions. Goodell worked with a four-person advisory committee to determine whether Elliott deserved to be punished. However, it was revealed during the appeal process that Kia Roberts, the NFL’s lead investigator, had issues with Thompson’s credibility and that she would not have recommended discipline for Elliott based on what she had found.
On Tuesday, appeals officer Harold Henderson upheld the suspension as Mazzant was hearing the NFLPA’s request for the TRO at the Paul Brown District Court in Sherman, Texas.
“The question before the Court is merely whether Elliott received a fundamentally fair hearing before the arbitrator. The answer is he did not,” Mazzant wrote in his ruling Friday. “The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing.”
Mazzant also wrote that “the NFL’s breach of the [collective bargaining agreement] is only compounded by Henderson’s breach of the CBA. Specifically, Henderson denied access to certain procedural requirements, which were necessary to be able to present all relevant evidence at the hearing.”
The NFL, in a statement released later Friday, said it disagreed with the court’s assertion.
“We strongly believe that the investigation and evidence supported the Commissioner’s decision and that the process was meticulous and fair throughout,” the league said.
In his ruling, Mazzant noted that the court was not ruling on whether there was credible evidence that Elliott committed domestic abuse.
At the heart of the NFLPA’s case is what it believes is a lack of “fundamental fairness,” in the appeals process, noting Henderson was not an independent arbitrator and they were not allowed to question Thompson about the series of events two summers ago.
“Commissioner discipline will continue to be a distraction from our game for one reason: because NFL owners have refused to collectively bargain a fair and transparent process that exists in other sports,” the NFLPA said in a statement later Friday. “This ‘imposed’ system remains problematic for players and the game, but as the honest and honorable testimony of a few NFL employees recently revealed, it also demonstrates the continued lack of integrity within their own League office.”
The Cowboys did not comment on the court’s decision.
Elliott posted a video on Instagram with the caption: “Momma told me if ya fall never stay down.”
After Henderson’s ruling, the NFL filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in New York to enforce Elliott’s suspension. The Southern District of New York falls under the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which last year backed Goodell’s four-game suspension of New England quarterback Tom Brady in the “Deflategate” case.
In its statement released Friday night, the NFL said “it will review the decision [by Mazzant] in greater detail and discuss next steps with counsel, both in the district court and federal court of appeals.”
The NFL stiffened penalties in domestic cases three years after the league was sharply criticized for its handling of the domestic case involving former Baltimore running back Ray Rice.
Elliott, meanwhile, rushed for 1,631 yards as a rookie to help the Cowboys to the best record in the NFC at 13-3. He was a full practice participant throughout training camp but played in just one preseason game, same as a year ago when Elliott missed significant time at camp because of a hamstring injury.
Chris Andrews, an oddsmaker from The South Point, told ESPN that the Cowboys’ odds to win Super Bowl LII moved from 15-1 to 12-1 after Friday’s ruling was announced. The odds for the Cowboys winning the NFC title moved from 8-1 to 6-1, Andrews said.
Information from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Ben Fawkes and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club — which Trump has christened the “Winter White House” — was ordered to evacuate on Friday, along with the rest of ritzy Palm Beach island, as Hurricane Irma’s powerful winds and storm surge approached the Florida coast.
The evacuation order went in place at 10 a.m. Friday, part of a series of orders that will require 155,000 people to leave their homes in Palm Beach County alone.
[Irma closes in on Florida, posing dire threat]
The Palm Beach County evacuations cover low-lying areas along Lake Okeechobee, as well as a long swath of neighborhoods along the Intracoastal Waterway and the barrier islands off Florida’s east coast. On those barrier islands, some of the country’s most expensive real estate sits on a narrow spit of land, with sometimes just a few hundred feet of terra firma separating the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway.
The town of Palm Beach, home to Mar-a-Lago, sits on one of those narrow islands. On Friday, the town ordered all residents to be out by 5 p.m. The county said the first tropical-storm-force winds were expected to arrive on the island on Saturday afternoon.
“Mandatory evacuation for the entire town remains in effect. Please gather the essentials for three to four days, including clothing, medicine, important documents and communication devices,” the town’s order said. “Please relocate west of US-1 until this storm passes if you do not plan to depart the county/state.”
U.S. Route 1 is a north-south highway on the mainland about a mile from Mar-a-Lago.
Mar-a-Lago is a members-only social club, with ballrooms, a few guest suites, and living quarters for Trump himself. The property stretches east-to-west across the island, touching both the ocean and the intracoastal waterway — its name means “Sea-to-Lake.” The estate has existed since the 1920s, when it was built by heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. It has been through multiple hurricanes before, but Irma is an especially strong and dangerous storm, which could push an enormous amount of seawater onto the land.
[Maps: What’s in the path of Hurricane Irma]
Mar-a-Lago was already closed even before Irma approached. It operates only during the winter social “season” in Palm Beach, which runs roughly from Halloween to Mother’s Day. Its staff during the off-season is relatively small: The club hires dozens of temporary foreign workers during the high season to work as cooks, waiters and housekeepers.
A large swath of the Florida coast, including Palm Beach island, is under a storm surge warning — meaning “there is a danger of life-threatening inundation from rising water moving inland,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
Trump also owns three golf courses in South Florida: one in West Palm Beach, one in Jupiter, and one in Doral, west of Miami. None of the others was in a mandatory evacuation zone, at least as of Friday morning.
Of those three clubs, the one in Jupiter might be the most vulnerable to a storm surge. It sits about two miles inland from the coast but only a few thousand feet from a large creek.
In a statement Friday, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said that all three of those Trump golf clubs were already closed. The Doral club also includes a resort open to the public: The Trump Organization was urging anyone with reservations there to “make alternative lodging arrangements,” and waiving cancellation and change fees.
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