Police: MSU's Demetrious Cox broke cab driver's nose
EAST LANSING - Former Michigan State University football player Demetrious Cox was drunk and lost when he punched a cab driver last month in East Lansing, according to police records.
Cox, a senior team captain and starting defensive back, pleaded not guilty last week to a misdemeanor assault charge stemming from the Nov. 24 incident. He told the State Journal earlier that he had been "falsely accused."
Court records indicate he is being represented by Student Legal Services, a free service sponsored by MSU's student government. A woman who answered the phone at that office declined to comment on the case.
According to the records, a cab driver told police he picked up a customer, later identified as Cox, at about 2:45 a.m. in downtown East Lansing.
Cox, 22, tried to give the man directions to a residence on Oakridge Avenue, but ended up giving the driver "directions exactly to where he had been picked up," the records say. At that point, "(Cox) began getting very aggressive."
The driver told police Cox eventually refused to pay for the cab ride, then set down a burrito and began to punch him.
The driver fled to a nearby 7-Eleven and called police. He was later hospitalized and found to have a broken nose.
When East Lansing police began to question Cox a short time later, they noted he matched the cab driver's description, was eating a burrito and asked an officer to give him a ride to the same residence on Oakridge Avenue.
The officers arrested Cox and booked him into the jail at the East Lansing Police Department, where records indicate he was determined to have a blood alcohol level of .22.
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Cox later posted $200 bond and was released at 3:48 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, less than 48 hours before the scheduled kickoff of the Spartans football game against Penn State.
He did not travel with the team to the game.
If convicted, Cox faces up to 93 days in jail. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Jan. 5.
Contact Christopher Haxel at 517-377-1261 or chaxel@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisHaxel.