A Norfolk County jury needed less than two hours Tuesday to clear former New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs of both charges stemming from allegations that he assaulted and choked his live-in personal chef at his Dedham, Massachusetts, home. The swift verdict ended a two-day trial defined by conflicting testimony, a combative accuser, and a prosecution case that rested almost entirely on one woman's account, with no photographs of injuries, no video, and no eyewitnesses to the alleged attack.
Diggs had pleaded not guilty to one felony count of strangulation and one misdemeanor count of assault and battery. Both charges grew out of a Dec. 2 incident at his home. The jury rejected both.
The case is worth examining not because a celebrity walked free, but because it illustrates how thin evidence can carry a felony charge all the way to trial, and what happens when a jury actually weighs the facts rather than the headlines.
Jamila Adams, a chef who went by Mila, testified that Diggs "smacked me with an open hand" and choked her during an argument. She told the court she had lived in Diggs' home and prepared all of his meals, earning roughly $2,000 a week. She said she met Diggs on Instagram in 2022 and described their relationship as "complicated." She acknowledged a prior sexual relationship with Diggs, though she said it was not active at the time of the alleged assault.
Adams' time on the stand did not go smoothly. The Associated Press reported that Judge Jeanmarie Carroll repeatedly instructed Adams to answer questions directly and warned that continued evasive responses could result in her testimony being stricken from the record.
The judge did not mince words:
"This is not an opportunity for you to interject your own narrative and evade answering questions."
Portions of Adams' responses were struck as nonresponsive, and jurors were told to disregard them. At one point, Adams told the court Diggs had offered her $100,000 to recant her statement to police, but after a sidebar, the judge struck that remark from the record as well.
When pressed on cross-examination, Adams repeatedly deflected. She told the defense attorney "I can't speak on that," "I don't understand the question," and "I don't know how to answer the question." A witness whose own testimony has to be partially erased by the trial judge is not a witness who inspires confidence.
The prosecution's evidentiary problem went beyond Adams' credibility. Dedham police officer Kenneth Ellis, who took Adams' initial report, testified that she arrived at the station visibly upset, she "sat down on the bench and she was crying." But Ellis also acknowledged he did not observe visible injuries, did not collect photographs, did not speak with other witnesses, and that his investigation relied largely on Adams' account and text messages she provided.
Fox News reported that prosecutors did not present photos of injuries, video of the alleged assault, or any eyewitness testimony, a remarkable gap for a felony strangulation case that went to trial.
The defense, meanwhile, called two witnesses who undercut Adams' account. Xia Charles, Diggs' hairstylist, testified she spent time with Adams in New York in the days after the alleged incident and did not notice any injuries. She said Adams appeared normal and that she saw no marks on her neck or elsewhere.
Jeanelle Sales, Diggs' chief of staff who also goes by "Sunni," testified she saw Adams at the home on the very day the assault was alleged to have occurred. Sales said she did not see visible marks, redness, or swelling on Adams' neck or face, and that Adams appeared to be in normal spirits. Sales offered a detail that painted a picture far removed from a violent assault scene:
"She was walking around looking for a piece of paper and a pen to write a card, I guess, write a note to him for his birthday gift."
That is not the behavior of someone who has just been slapped and strangled. The jury apparently agreed.
Defense attorney Andrew Kettlewell told jurors in closing arguments that prosecutors had not presented "a single shred of credible evidence" that an assault occurred. He argued Adams made the accusation to "leverage and humiliate and to punish" Diggs. The backdrop to the dispute, Kettlewell said, included a disagreement over a planned trip to Miami and tensions over money.
The financial dimension of the case is hard to ignore. Defense attorneys pointed to a $19,000 demand Adams made. Her attorney later sought $5.5 million. Those figures, from a woman earning $2,000 a week as a personal chef, suggest a dispute that was always, at least in part, about compensation. Financial entanglements between professional athletes and the people around them have a long, ugly history, and this case fits a familiar pattern.
Kettlewell did not hedge:
"There was no assault, no strangulation, no incident at all on that day or any other day."
Assistant District Attorney Drew Virtue urged jurors to consider the power dynamics at play. He described Diggs as "a sometimes lover, a boss, landlord" and argued that Adams' behavior on the stand should be viewed through that lens.
"He was an athlete, a celebrity, financially powerful, surrounded by people that were all on his payroll that liked him. And when you put that all in consideration, her behavior does make sense."
Virtue conceded Adams was not "a perfect witness." He acknowledged she was "argumentative, avoidant, difficult" but asked jurors not to throw away everything she said. He asked the jury to give the case "the attention, the scrutiny, the weight it deserves."
The jury gave it exactly that, and returned not guilty on both counts in under two hours.
Diggs' attorney Mitch Schuster issued a written statement after the verdict that framed the case in terms any high-profile defendant would recognize. The Washington Times reported Schuster's pointed remarks about the pressures professional athletes face when accusations surface.
"Fame and financial success shouldn't strip someone of their presumption of innocence, but too often, it does exactly that."
Schuster continued:
"Professional athletes have a target on their back. When someone sees a uniform and a contract, they see leverage; they see a settlement. And they're counting on that pressure in the court of public opinion to drive a default decision to settle, regardless of the facts of the matter."
That is not a novel observation. But it carries weight after a jury looked at the actual evidence, or the lack of it, and reached its conclusion in less time than it takes to watch a football game. Former NFL players continue to face serious criminal charges in various jurisdictions, and each case turns on its own facts. In this one, the facts were not there.
Fox News also noted that Adams admitted during testimony to deleting text messages, a detail that further damaged her credibility before the jury. The NFL, for its part, told OutKick it has "been monitoring all developments in the matter, which remains under review of the personal conduct policy." Whether the league takes any action after a full acquittal remains an open question.
The case also raises a procedural question worth asking: How did a felony strangulation charge reach trial when the investigating officer collected no photographs, interviewed no other witnesses, and built his case largely on the accuser's own account and her text messages? A woman's distress at a police station is not nothing, but it is not evidence of a felony, either. The quality of investigation and evidence matters at every stage of the criminal justice process, and here the foundation was thin from the start.
Diggs is now a free agent, both legally and professionally. The two-day trial consumed public attention, generated headlines, and attached the words "strangulation" and "assault" to his name for months. A jury cleared him. But the reputational damage from an accusation, especially one involving a celebrity, does not vanish with a verdict.
Off-field crises continue to shadow former NFL players in ways that remind fans these men carry real-world risks long after the final whistle. Diggs' case ended better than most, with an acquittal. But the fact that it went to trial at all, on evidence this thin, should trouble anyone who believes the presumption of innocence is more than a slogan.
The system worked on Tuesday. A jury weighed the evidence, found it wanting, and said so. The harder question is why it took a felony trial to reach a conclusion that the evidence, or the absence of it, should have made clear much earlier. Presumption of innocence is supposed to be a shield, not a finish line you reach only after your name has been dragged through a courtroom.
