Secret NFL Child Abuse Arrest: Michael Boley, 30, Arrested For Physical Abuse In February

Michael Boley, a 30-year-old former linebacker with the New York Giants, was booked on February 8, 2013 for charges involving child abuse. Details about the case are still largely unclear, but reports confirm that the charges were of a physical, not sexual, nature. The incident allegedly occurred in 2011 and involved Boley's son, who was five years old at the time of the arrest writes TMZ. Boley played as a starting linebacker in the Giants' 21-17 victory in Super Bowl XLVI over the New England Patriots.

The free agent linebacker was cut by the Giants on February 5^th. Three days later, he turned himself into police on February 8^th in Etowah County, Alabama, as part of a plea deal. He was released without posting a bond later that day. He had been under investigation in Alabama after a 2011 incident involving his son. Boley, a father of six, admitted to child abuse and was ordered to attend a pre-trial diversion program; upon his completion of the program, the charge would be dropped.

TMZ suggested that the February 5^th arrest may have had to do with the New York Giants' decision to cut him.

The Daily Mail reports that the case is not the first time Boley has had legal troubles. In 2011, just after allegations of child abuse against him first surfaced, a woman in Georgia who has another child with him filed court documents asking that his visitations with their child be supervised. Two years before that, he was suspended a game after being charged with domestic battery for allegedly beating his wife. The New York Daily News had reported that he had pushed her against a wall, threw her over a couch and shoved her into a kitchen cabinet door. The Daily News wrote that the judge on the case had upheld the prosecutor's motion for "nolle prosequi" - a motion that can be filed for a plethora of reasons and which means that the case would not be pursued further. In consequence the case never went to tria, and the two are now divorced.

Boley was drafted out of Southern Miss - where he won the Conerly Trophy, awarded to the best college football player in the state of Mississippi - in the fifth round of the 2005 NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons. In 2009 he signed a five-year, $25 million contact with the Giants.