The Ravens feud has ended.
A Baltimore City district judge dismissed assault charges Monday against one current and one former Baltimore Ravens football player, after the two athletes refused to testify against each other.
Former Ravens player Joe Maese, 29, and current Ravens safety Gerome Sapp, 26, had filed second-degree assault charges against each other stemming from an altercation at an Inner Harbor nightspot in late December.
But Monday, the two men decided to end the dispute.
“They?ve resolved their differences,” said Maese?s attorney, Michael DeHaven.
“We are putting this behind us and moving forward,” said Sapp?s attorney, Warren Alperstein.
The two athletes declined comment outside the courtroom.
Maese had filed assault charges against Sapp after he said the current Raven attacked him in the stairwell of Angels Rock Bar at Power Plant Live in downtown Baltimore.
“I was walking down the stairwell when Gerome Sapp ran after me and punched me,” Maese wrote in court documents. “He swung a second time and missed as we went to the ground. A bartender, Trent O?Connor, grabbed Gerome and pulled him off of me. Gerome ran back up the stairs laughing.”
In return, Sapp filed the same charges against Maese.
Each man?s statement was the only evidence against the other, and after they both refused to testify Monday, citing their constitutional Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Judge Jack Lesser found both men not guilty of the charges.
In Maryland, anyone can file misdemeanor criminal charges against another person, but prosecutors review the case and decide if it should go forward.
Sapp has been with the team twice during his five-year career and was a sixth-round draft pick in 2003. He was released by the Ravens early during the 2004 season and was reacquired in a trade with the IndianapolisColts before the 2006 season.
Maese was the team?s long snapper, but was not re-signed for the 2005 season.
