Saints to release Junior Galette after video allegedly of him hitting woman surfaces
New Orleans Saints linebacker Junior Galette walks along the sideline during the second half of a game against the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 24.
Junior Galette is expected to be released by the New Orleans Saints following a series of off-field incidents, including the surfacing of a video allegedly showing the linebacker striking a woman with a belt during a fight on a beach in 2013.
Galette’s attorney denied that his client was the man in the video, but the Saints forwarded the clip to the NFL nonetheless. The 27-year-old also was allegedly involved in a domestic violence incident in January, though the charges against him were later dropped.
“The worst call they’ve ever made,” Galette told the New Orleans Times-Picayune on Friday. “It was a terrible call to kick me when I’m down. Everything is [Saints Coach Sean Payton’s] call. He told me that himself. He’s the one who pulls the trigger.”
Galette led the Saints with 10 sacks last season and had 22 over two years with the organization. Less than a year ago he signed a four-year contract extension worth $41.5 million, making him the third-highest paid linebacker in the league.
“Who else do they have? You tell me, who else do they have?” Galette said. “Who knows, maybe I’ll get 40 sacks the next two years and we’ll reunite. The business is the business, you know? Like Vito Corleone said, ‘Watch out for traitors.’”
The Saints originally signed Galette, who was born in Haiti, as an undrafted free agent out of Stillman in 2010.
“Really, at this level, you can conduct yourself as good, as choirboy as you want, sometimes the trouble comes to you,” Galette told the Times-Picayune in June of the January incident. “In that situation, there was nothing I could do. Everything, if I could do it all over again, there’s not much different that I can do as far as what this person wants for me out of my life.”
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Follow Matt Wilhalme on Twitter @mattwilhalme
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