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McGraw Cleared of Horse Play
It took an upstate New York jury just two hours Wednesday to acquit the two singers of a post-concert melee involving some sheriff's deputies and a police horse.
The verdict was greeted with an ovation in the courtroom. McGraw's wife, Faith Hill, who flew in overnight from the Pearl Harbor premiere in Hawaii for moral support, teared up as her hubby and Chesney embraced.
"We've been waiting 11 months to have our day in court, we didn't want any plea bargains, we just wanted to tell the truth," McGraw said outside the courtroom. "The justice system works. The people of Buffalo have been wonderful to us. We'll be back...Thanks to everyone's support, our fans' support."
McGraw, Hill and Chesney then signed autographs for the dozens of fans on hand.
The whole mess dates back to June 3, when the singers were in Buffalo for the George Strait Country Music Festival. After the show, Chesney hopped on a police horse and began riding around. A sheriff's deputy, not realizing the singer had permission to ride the steed, tried to pull him down. McGraw and his road manager, Mark Russo, then began scuffling with the deputy and other officers.
McGraw, 34, and Russo, 45, were arrested on misdemeanor charges of assaulting a sheriff's deputy and faced up to a year in prison each if convicted. Chesney, 33, charged with a lesser disorderly conduct violation, faces 15 days in jail.
The trial began May 14 but was put on hold last Thursday after the presiding judge, Town Justice Edmund Brown Jr., was rushed from the courtroom to a Buffalo hospital after suffering a heart attack. Another local justice, John Curran, stepped in on Monday and continued the case.
During his testimony earlier this week, McGraw told the six-person jury that deputies swarmed Chesney without warning. McGraw said he was only trying to keep Chesney from being yanked "face-first into the concrete." McGraw, whose latest CD, Set This Circus Down has dominated the country charts in recent weeks, said he expected an apology, not an arrest.
Chesney, who took the stand before McGraw, said he never got a chance to explain he had permission to ride the horse from the horse's owner. He said he thought it would be "an innocent, fun gesture" to ride the animal into the backstage area where the other musicians had gathered.
In closing arguments Wednesday, McGraw's lawyer, Thomas Eoannou, called his client's trial a "joke," saying "the sheriff of all of Erie County had put aside the county's business to assassinate Tim McGraw." Sheriff Patrick Gallivan was sitting in the front row during the remark.
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