Slava Voynov’s lawyer Craig Renetzky is pretty confident that his client will not be charged with a crime and the entire situation was just an accident. This comes from a report found on The Hockey News which contains several statements from Voynov’s legal representative.
Renetzky:
“It’s clear to me there was no crime here. Hopefully, the police will get that. And we’re hoping the NHL looks at the new evidence and will lift the suspension. What the police will find out when they talk to her is that the action was not related to Mr. Voynov. I can’t go into complete details, but Mr. Voynov never hit the woman. This is really just a pure accident and we’re going to provide them with some additional evidence we hope they’ll present to the District Attorney’s office. And if they do, based on my experience, they don’t have a case.
I think if the authorities act properly and do a complete investigation, they will have to find that charges are not warranted.”
Renetzky outlined that the language barrier assisted in creating the situation and that Voynov is in no way guilty. He also called out the NHL for handing out a punishment before any judgement on Voynov has been made. In fact, he calls the whole process anti-American.
“I think the league has gone extremely overboard. In this country for the past 200 years, we’ve presumed people to be innocent until proven otherwise and the NHL has basically in this case said, ‘Well, OK, there was an allegation made, not even from the victim, not even from the woman. It’s just based on reports and you’re suspended indefinitely.’ That’s completely anti-American, I hate to say.”
Naturally, you’d expect comments like these from the man in charge of defending the accused, but it’s interesting to see him dive into an anti-American angle.
Voynov was arrested on charges for domestic abuse after he reportedly accompanied the victim to the hospital for treatment. No other details have been released, but the NHL swiftly suspended Voynov and the Kings stood behind the decision.
