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Redskins Player Fred Davis Must Pay Damages for “Assault and Battery”

A DC judge ruled Tuesday that Davis must pay nearly $20,000 to Baltimore “celebrity broker” Makini Chaka.
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Redskins tight end Fred Davis, pictured at training camp in 2011. Photograph by Flickr user Keith Allison.

Washington Redskins tight end
Fred Davis “assaulted and battered” a woman at a DC nightclub in 2011 and must pay her nearly
$20,000, a DC Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling comes after a two-and-a-half-year legal saga in which a Baltimore woman,

Makini R. Chaka, claimed in civil court that Davis dumped juice on her and threw an empty pitcher
at her, injuring her, at Josephine Nightclub and Lounge in DC, on January 6, 2011.
Josephine’s is located at 1008 Vermont Avenue, Northwest.

Chaka asked for more than $350,000 in damages. “My boots, which were suede, were damaged
by the acid in the juice,” Chaka told the judge during the March 11 bench trial. Both parties acted as their own attorneys in earlier portions of the proceedings.

Davis, who has alleged that Chaka is a celebrity “madam” who provides escorts for
NFL players, admitted to dumping the juice on Chaka but not to throwing the empty
pitcher at her.

Chaka has since filed a defamation suit in federal court against Davis regarding these
comments.

Chaka has denied providing prostitutes for anyone. She describes herself as a “celebrity
broker” who arranges parties for athletes and entertainers.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge
Laura A. Cordero wrote that Chaka “has established by a preponderance of evidence that Defendant Fred
Davis assaulted and battered her.”

The judge awarded Chaka $186 in medical damages, $575 to compensate for damage to
“her boots, her dress, [and] her hair weave.” The judge also awarded Chaka $9,000
in lost earnings and $10,000 in pain and suffering.

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Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.