Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, facing charges in a murder case already, has now been reported as the co-star with one of his co-defendants in a sexually explicit mail-order video - throwing the NFL star's image as a family man into question.
But it also throws into question a defense claim that Lewis "hardly knew" co-defendants Joseph Sweeting and Reginald Oakley ¾ a published report last weekend revealed the video, Luke's Freak Show: Cancun 1999, featuring Lewis and Sweeting watching party guests performing various sexual acts for money.
Lewis and Sweeting, as well as Reginald Oakley, face a May 15 trial date in the death of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar after a Super Bowl party earlier this year.
Luke's Freak Show: Cancun 1999, was produced by 2 Live Crew rap star Luther Campbell at a party he threw in Cancun. It reportedly features Lewis coming in with Sweeting, dancing shirtless with two scantily dressed and gyrating women.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Campbell said he is a friend of both Lewis and Sweeting, the latter described as "a fledgling music producer and strip club promoter from Miami," with the three first meeting while Lewis was a football player for the University of Miami.
Lewis' attorneys have not commented on the video or on reports of police lab tests showing blood matching Baker's found inside Lewis's rented limousine the morning of the killings, as well as traces of Baker's blood found near where Lewis was sitting. The judge in the case has imposed a gag order.
Sweeting is also said to have a long criminal history which includes grand theft and firearm possession by a felon convictions back in the mid-1980s. Oakley, too, is reported to have a criminal past that includes 25 criminal counts against him from 1985 to 1992, according to APBNews. Those charges include assaulting a police officer.
Lewis has previous assault charges on his record, but the trial judge in this case has ruled they can't be admitted in the current case. They were filed by three women but ultimately dropped, despite a prosecution bid to have them show Lewis's violent history and shoot down a defense claim Lewis was the peacemaker in the party brawl which ended in the two killings.
