See the update at the end of this post on the Orange County District Attorney's office confirming there is NOT an arrest warrant out here for Von Miller and explaining how the mistake made it into print.
ORIGINAL POST, SEPT. 12, 10:41 A.M.: Speed in the 40-yard dash. Length of vertical jump. Poundage that can be bench pressed.
NFL scouts want to know these about pro football prospects but we'll suggest one more: arrest warrants in Orange County.
Because former Detroit Lions receiver Titus Young is not the only player dealing with an arrest warrant out of Orange County as Denver Broncos star linebacker Von Miller now has one too.
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The Denver Post and its media partner ABC7 News of Denver are reporting that Susan Schroeder, the Orange County District Attorney's chief of staff, has confirmed the warrant was issued due to Miller failing to pay a ticket for speeding in a 65 mph zone and then failing to appear in court. He got the ticket on March 8, 2012.
As with Young, this is part of a pattern of recent incidents that have put Miller on the wrong side of the law and the NFL, but at least his alleged offenses are not as cray-cray as Young's.
Miller, who is currently serving a six-game suspension for violating the NFL's drug policy, was cited Sept. 5 for driving 38 mph in a 25 mph zone in an Arapahoe County, Colorado, suburb.
And he was arrested Aug. 11 at a Centennial, Colorado, gun store when he tried to buy a gun and the background check indicated he had an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to appear in court on an October traffic ticket in that state. He'd been ticketed blocks from his home for driving without a valid license, along with careless driving and no proof of insurance.
UPDATE, SEPT. 13, 3:19 P.M.: Susan Schroeder, the Orange County District Attorney's chief of staff, has reportedly told the Denver Post she made a mistake saying there is an arrest warrant out here for Von Miller.
As Joby Branion, Miller's agent, had said, his client paid the speeding ticket and all associated fees in full July 9, 2012. On July 12, 2012, the case was closed.
“I wasn't sure,” Schroeder reportedly mea culpa'd to the Post. “We make mistakes. My punishment for it is I'm getting a hundred phone calls today.”
HOWEVER, Schroeder tells the Weekly the Post's entire Von Miller reporting on the Orange County traffic ticket was based on a misunderstanding. In the first Post story, which quotes the chief of staff definitively saying there was a warrant, what she says she told the reporter was there could be a warrant because it appeared the case was still open but that it could not be confirmed at the time of the call.
Other media outlets reported the Miller warrant story that way, but the Post went with a warrant being definitely being issued, Schroeder tells us. When someone from the Post called back to ask if their original reporter got the story wrong, Schroeder says she diplomatically explained “we all make mistakes”–something the Post characterized in its follow-up as the chief of staff saying about herself, not its reporter.
No word yet from Mike Klis, whose byline is over the Post's “we make mistakes” story.
UPDATE: From Mike Klis, via email: “I quoted her accurately.”
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.