Former Breakers player Glen Rice Jr has been allowed to leave the country and return to the United States despite facing a serious violence charge.

The 29-year-old American was arrested last November and charged with assault with intent to injure after an incident at an Auckland bar.

Today, the nearly 2m-tall swingman was due to appear again in the Auckland District Court.

However, he was missing, with rumours circulating that Rice had left New Zealand some time ago.

Rice’s lawyer, Peter Tomlinson, confirmed the situation.

He asked Judge Emma Parsons to excuse his client’s attendance for today’s hearing.

So where was Rice? Texas, his lawyer said.

Tomlinson cited the global Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse for the basketballer’s absence and inability to return to New Zealand and face the charge.

The judge pardoned Rice’s absence from today’s hearing, but also noted the unusual situation of continuing his bail without forcing him to comply with its conditions.

Rice, who has played for the Washington Wizards and was a second-round pick in the 2013 NBA draft, had joined the Breakers just 10 days prior to the alleged assault as an injury replacement.

Just a couple of weeks after his arrest, however, Rice was in trouble again after allegedly breaching his bail conditions. It lead to the Breakers tearing up his contract.

During Rice’s first court appearance, Breakers owner Matt Walsh was sitting alongside him and told media afterwards that the club would let the matter “play out” through the justice system.

The case will be back in court again in August, when a date for a judge-alone trial is to be set. Judge Parsons has already excused Rice’s attendance for that hearing.

Rice, who is the son of former NBA star and champion Glen Rice, has earlier pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Former All-Pro running back Chris Johnson has been linked to a murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the deaths of two men in 2016, TMZ Sports reported Thursday.

TMZ said Johnson hasn’t been charged but is suspected of paying “a noted Florida gang member” to kill two men whom he believed shot at him and a friend in 2015.

“There’s no validity to any of these accusations,” a representative for Johnson told TMZ.

In March 2015, Johnson was a passenger in a Jeep traveling in Orlando, Florida, and was shot in the right shoulder in a drive-by shooting. The driver, Johnson’s friend, was shot in the head and died.

At the time, police said they believed the Jeep was targeted. Now, according to the TMZ report, court documents say “intelligence gathered suggested [the shooting] was a gang related murder attempt on Chris Johnson”.

The men suspected in the Orlando incident were shot dead in 2016 – one in January and one in June.

TMZ said that in exchange for killing the suspected shooters, Johnson paid the alleged gang leader, Dominic Bolden, by giving him “funds and an individual” who could help him form a drug trafficking organization.

Johnson, 34, last played in the NFL in 2017.

The Tennessee Titans made Johnson, an East Carolina product, the 24th overall selection in the 2008 NFL Draft. In his second season with the Titans, he led the NFL with 2,006 rushing yards and was named First Team All-Pro.

He spent six seasons in Tennessee, gaining at 1,000 yards each year, but never achieved those numbers again. He signed a free-agent deal with the New York Jets in 2014, gaining 663 yards. He ended his career with the Arizona Cardinals, rushing for 1,023 yards in 19 games over three seasons (2015-17).

Johnson gained 9,651 yards on the ground and scored 55 touchdowns in his career. He added 2,255 receiving yards and nine scores.