Brian Banks wore the uniform of a prison inmate for over five several years, serving time to get a rape he didn't spend.
This 7 days, Brian learned he'll be wearing an Atlanta Falcons jersey.
10 months after a California judge tossed out his conviction, the 27-year-old former secondary school football standout signed a offer Wednesday to play to the NFL team.
"Aside through getting gaming back and my independence back, this can be a biggest fulfillment of gaming, " he told reporters after a conference phone.
As he signed the particular contract, he wore a sweatshirt that will showed the California permission plate that said "XONR8.
"We are pleased to have Brian join we, " said Falcons standard manager Thomas Dimitroff. "We had an opportunity to work him or her out a year ago and are already monitoring his progress since then. He worked as a chef extremely hard due to this chance throughout the last year and she has shown us that he is prepared due to this opportunity. We tend to be happy that will Brian should have an opportunity to live out his dream of playing inside the NFL, and we anticipate seeing him within the field.
Brian Banks, who's 6-foot-2 and 250 weight, is the linebacker.
Last year, he was outside of prison upon parole, wearing an ankle monitor like a registered making love offender. The contrast with this particular week's situations is "surreal, inch Banks said.
"Talk about from the bottom, inch he instructed reporters. "I realize all also well what that is certainly and what it seems as if and what it feels like. "
While serving time in prison, Banks said he was forced to abandon his hopes of playing inside the NFL at some point.
"I needed to watch my class just receive scholarships or grants and engage in collegiate football using a high degree, " he said. "For me I needed to enable those dreams opt for me to pay attention to what was before me, which was several years in prison. That had been a completely different life of violence and being clear of your family.... Football was the last thing upon my head, and this wasn't until a couple of months before My partner and i was actually hitting theaters from prison that i thought in relation to possibly looking to play soccer again.
At the age 17, fearing the potentially lengthy sentence, the school football prospective client followed the particular advice of his attorney at law and pleaded absolutely no contest to assaulting an extended Beach, California, high institution classmate in 2002.
"Brian was confronted by an extremely hard decision at that time - often fight the particular charges and risk paying 41 years alive in the penitentiary, or please take a plea offer and spend just a little over several years of actual the penitentiary confinement, inch the California Innocence Project says upon its website. "Although it might mean wrecking his chance to visit to college and play soccer, a extended probationary period, and a long time of registration like a sex prison, Brian find the lesser of two evils whenever he pleaded absolutely no contest towards charges. inch
Such situations are certainly not uncommon, the particular group's overseer, Justin Brooks, told CNN a year ago.
"Plea bargains are becoming the 95% solution, " he said.
Brian Banks maintained his innocence through his imprisonment, subsequent probation and registration like a sex prison.
His fortunes started to change in 2011, in the event the woman exactly who once offender him of rape sent him the Facebook buddy request.
Good California Innocence Project, the woman later mentioned that Banks had not kidnapped or perhaps raped her after a consensual encounter at Extended Beach Polytechnic Secondary school, where Banks was the middle linebacker having a scholarship offer from your University of Southern California.
In court a year ago, an mental Banks reduced his head and fought back tears when prosecutors said these folks were moving to have the conviction dismissed.
"We usually do not believe Mr. Banks did the particular crime he pled remorseful to, inch Deputy Area Attorney Brentford Ferreira said. "Justice has become served.
Since his exoneration, Banks has spent months in intensive coaching, attending San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks minicamps a year ago.
"It's been an extended road. It's been a lot of hard work. It is 10 years missing around my football job, " he said, "but there has been a wide range of work invest to getting together again for this. "
After deciding upon his contract using the Falcons upon Wednesday, Brian Banks thanked the particular team's participants and staff members from his Twitter account.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com
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