TMZ’s Harvey Levin says NFL turned blind eye to Ray Rice video

TMZ boss Harvey Levin did a number of interviews Monday to capitalize on the publicity his company received for releasing video of Ray Rice punching out wife Janay Palmer in an elevator back in February.

In at least one interview, Levin said he believes the NFL chose to look the other way regarding the video (see it here).

There have been conflicting reports about whether the NFL has seen the video the public got to see on Monday. The league denies that they did. But TMZ is charging them with turning a blind eye to the video. They say they will have more evidence of this on Tuesday (yes, TMZ loves attention too).

Keep this in mind: Back on Feb. 21, we told you police had video of Rice knocking out Palmer. The police and prosecutors had it and the league knew it existed. TMZ obtained it and released it this week.

Despite knowledge of what was being alleged regarding Rice and Palmer, the NFL still only decided to suspend Rice for two games. Commissioner Roger Goodell even said two weeks ago that he got it wrong with the punishment and that the league would increase the penalty for domestic violence.

It’s pretty obvious that the league and authorities wanted to bury this incident and hope it would go away. Rather than crusade to obtain the video, their investigation included interviewing Rice and Palmer … together! They clearly don’t understand that victims might fear telling the truth when their abuser is present.

The NFL dealt with a ton of negative publicity for the lenient punishment given to Rice. Now they’re facing charges of running a cover-up. Don’t be surprised if Roger Goodell loses his job over this. It’s been a colossal mess by the NFL.