{ "item_title" : "The Conviction", "item_author" : [" T. Scott "], "item_description" : "Thirteen Pro Bowls. Two Super Bowls. Super Bowl XXXV MVP. Two Defensive Player of the Year awards. The Pro Football Hall of Fame. Widely regarded as the greatest middle linebacker in the history of the sport.And two men who are dead, and nobody convicted.On January 31, 2000, Ray Lewis was in Atlanta for Super Bowl XXXIV weekend. In the early morning hours of February 1, a fight broke out between Lewis's group and another group outside a nightclub in the Buckhead neighborhood. When it was over, Jacinth Baker, 21, and Richard Lollar, 24, had been stabbed multiple times. Both were dead.Lewis and two associates - Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting - were charged with murder and aggravated assault. Lewis spent time in jail before trial.Blood from one of the victims was found in Lewis's limousine. The white suit he was wearing that night was never found. A witness reportedly quoted him as saying in the limousine: I'm not trying to end my career like this.Several weeks into the murder trial, Lewis's attorneys negotiated a plea agreement: murder charges dropped in exchange for his testimony against Oakley and Sweeting, and Lewis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to 12 months of probation.Oakley and Sweeting were tried for murder. Both were acquitted.Nobody was ever convicted of the murders of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Nobody has served a single day in prison for two men who are dead.Eleven months later, Ray Lewis was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXV. Because he was the Super Bowl MVP, he was supposed to say he was going to Disney World. He did not say it. That honor went to quarterback Trent Dilfer. The NFL and Disney had decided that the person who had been charged with murder eleven months earlier should not be the face of a Disney campaign.The NFL fined Lewis $250,000 for failing to cooperate fully with authorities. He paid undisclosed civil settlements to the families of both victims - including a settlement with India Lollar, four years old, born months after her father's death.He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. Twenty-five miles from Canton, in Akron, Ohio, Richard Lollar's brother Handsome Lollar called the induction a black eye to the NFL. He still believed Lewis was guilty.When CBS analyst Shannon Sharpe asked Lewis on air whether he had a message for the families of the slain men, Lewis replied: It's simple. God has never made a mistake.The Conviction is the complete account of the Ray Lewis case: the murders, the trial, the plea deal, the acquittals, the Super Bowl MVP, the Hall of Fame, and the families of two men who have never received justice.Book 5 of the On the Field series: football's criminal cases told in full.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/817/102/9798171027490_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "13.99", "online_price" : "13.99", "our_price" : "13.99", "club_price" : "13.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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