Zach Smith, former assistant to Buckeyes of the state of Ohio, agrees to a plea agreement for criminal charges



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Former Ohio State Assistant Coach Zach Smith on Tuesday accepted a plea agreement to resolve the criminal charges that sparked a month-long controversy over the football program. Buckeyes and head coach Urban Meyer.

Smith pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in exchange for the dismissal of an offense charge for violation of criminal property. A Delaware County judge in Ohio has sentenced him to pay $ 289 in fines and court costs related to the case, according to court records. Courtney Smith, Zach's ex-wife, told ESPN that a judge had also granted her a three-year protection order under the resolution.

Courtney Smith has accused the coach of the former Ohio State receivers on several occasions of having abused her in an interview with Stadium's Brett McMurphy, published this summer. She also accused Meyer and other members of the sports department of not having aided or misreported her allegations when they had learned of the existence of allegations of ill-treatment during the day. in recent years.

The state of Ohio returned Zach Smith at the end of July, the day after the publication of these allegations.

The school suspended Meyer at the beginning of August and opened an investigation into how he and others at the university had responded to calls made at the university. Courtney Smith's aide. The probe found a long list of red flags on Zach Smith's behavior that had been neglected by Meyer and others. As a result, the school suspended Meyer for his entire pre-training camp, the first week of the regular season and three games.

Meyer said his relationship with Zach Smith's grandfather, former Ohio State head coach Earle Bruce, had blurred his judgment when he evaluated Smith's behavior.

Zach Smith stated that he had a "toxic" relationship with his ex-wife and that he had made mistakes in his personal and professional life, but he denied hitting his wife or doing anything that would have earned him criminal abuse. Courtney Smith has contacted the police to report abuses on several occasions – first in 2009 when the couple lived in Florida and that Zach was working for Urban Meyer at the University of Florida and again in 2015 in Columbus. None of these reports resulted in charges against Smith.

"As I have said since the first day, I have been falsely accused of very serious allegations that should not be enlightened," Smith said. Twitter message Tuesday night. "In addition to being accused of breaking a law that I did not rape." The media circus that followed greatly hurt my family, my grandfather's legacy father and ruined my professional career for which I have been working extremely hard since 2005. "

Police charged Zach Smith with criminal intrusion last spring, which led to earlier charges against him. At first, Meyer had denied knowing about the 2015 incident, but had subsequently retracted it. His inability to accurately describe what he knew of Smith's past, coupled with the way he had handled Smith's myriad of problems as a state employee. Ohio had caused his long suspension.

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