Kevin Porter Jr. pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of misdemeanor assault and a harassment violation. Per the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, the former Houston Rockets player can avoid any jail time if he is not arrested again, follows a limited protection order, attends his court appearances, and finishes a court-ordered, 26-week abusive partner intervention program.
Police arrested Porter in September after they got a 911 call and responded to the Millennium Hilton, where officers found Porter's then-girlfriend bruised and bleeding, according to a criminal complaint cited by the Associated Press. Officers wrote that it looked like former Indiana Fever player Kysre Gondrezick had been hit multiple times. In court, per the AP, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Mirah Curzer said that Porter had a history of abusing Gondrezick during their relationship.
A month later, in October, prosecutors dropped one of the charges against Porter, second-degree assault, after they conceded that a fractured vertebrae of Gondrezick's had been a pre-existing condition and not caused by Porter. Then Gondrezick spoke to the New York Post, telling them that Porter never hit her, never punched her, and denied there was a history of abuse in their relationship. Instead, she said, that night they had argued for "not even 10 seconds."
"He didn’t hit me. He never balled his fists up and hit me," Gondrezick told the Post. "And he definitely didn’t punch me in the face numerous times. That is a lie. I don’t have any injuries to support that."
Gondrezick went into further details speaking with TMZ. In the video, Gondrezick said Porter wanted to talk with her that night but she already was asleep. Porter grabbed her by the shoulder to wake her up, but she was hazy, and could smell alcohol. As she told TMZ, "Clearly, it wasn't the right place nor the right time to even have a discussion." Porter trying to wake her up caused her to fall out of the bed and hit her head against the wall, which is what cut her eye and caused her to bleed. When she saw the blood, Gondrezick said she panicked and ran out the room. That's when someone, not her, called 911.
"They have compounded my trauma even more than the actual experience," she said of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. "And to know that they have defamed my integrity—the person and the woman that I stand for—has kind of stifled, has actually really stifled multiple opportunities that I've worked so hard to get as well as my safety and my life today."
Gondrezick told the Post and TMZ that prosecutors didn't talk to her or review her medical records before speaking in open court back in September. Instead, she said she talked with a district attorney about a week after everything happened. She said prosecutors spread "false information" and a "false narrative." Gondrezick added that the injuries reported in court came from what "an officer overheard medical personnel say and was not accurate to my medical records." Her lawyer, Bobby Altchiler, said his client had received death threats.
"I believe they jumped the gun too soon," Gondrezick said. "They thought that I would be on the same side of their injustice, which wasn't true, as they've now started to realize."
After his arrest, the Rockets traded Porter to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who waived him. If Porter finishes the treatment program and fulfills all the other requirements of the plea agreement, he can withdraw his plea on the misdemeanor assault charge and will be granted time served on the harassment violation.
Gondrezick said she still doesn't know what Porter wanted to talk to her about that night. She told TMZ that she has not been in contact with him since and is focusing on herself. When asked if she was speaking out to protect Porter, she said, "This is to protect me. This is to protect the integrity of who I stand for. This is to protect the name that I've worked so had to create, to not sit back and be silent and allow someone the arrogance or the entitlement to feel as if they have power or consent to misrepresent who I am."
