Former 49er Kwame Harris Found Guilty of Battery, Assault

Former San Francisco 49er Kwame Harris has been found guilty of several misdemeanors involving a violent dispute with an ex-boyfriend at a Chinese restaurant last year.
 
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the 31-year-old former lineman was convicted Monday of misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and assault for the August 2012 attack at  Suh Hong restaurant in Menlo Park. Harris was acquitted of felony domestic violence and assault. He's scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12.
 
Prosecutors say Harris became angry after his boyfriend at the time, Dimitri Geier, tried to put soy sauce on his rice at a restaurant. They said Harris pinned the boyfriend against a window and hit him several times in the face and head.
 
Harris' attorney, Alin Cintean, says his client punched Geier only once and did it in self-defense.
 
Geier suffered several facial fractures that required surgery.
 
Harris was raised in Delaware and accepted a scholarship to play football at Stanford before being drafted in the first round of the 2003 NFL draft by the 49ers. He spent five years with the team before spending the final season of his career with the Raiders in 2008.

Harris' arrest outed him as gay, which prompted him to speak about the topic of gay athletes in professional sports. He told former Stanford teammate Coy Wire it was difficult keeping his sexual orientation a secret and took a toll on him, according to NFL.com.

"I didn't see those two things as being compatible, but now when I look back in hindsight, if I could have done it differently, I'd like to think that I would find the strength, or find the fortitude or the grace to make the hard decision," Harris told Wire. "You want to escape this despair, this turmoil. Maybe your mind goes to dark places sometimes, but I would just say I'm happy today. I'm glad I didn't actually ... that those were just ideas, that I didn't act on any of those things and it does, you know, it does get better."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
 

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