The NEW CASTLE (PA) NEWS reports today that it has confirmed the engagement of Ben Roethlisberger to, “Lawrence County (PA) native Ashley Harlan, a 2004 graduate of Laurel High School.”

Kayleen Cubbal of the News reported Wednesday:

Sources have confirmed that Roethlisberger is engaged to Ashley Harlan, a 2004 graduate of Laurel High School whose family home is on Devils Elbow Road in Hickory Township.

Word of the engagement, which is said to have occurred over the Christmas holiday, leaked out both locally and nationally over the past few days and, while Roethlisberger said following yesterday’s practice that he would not discuss his personal life, the proverbial cat appears to be out of the bag.

Harlan also attended St. Francis (PA) College where she played softball between 2005-07. She now works as a physician’s assistant and still lives at home with her parents in the Newcastle area.

Sally Kalson and Karen Kane of the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE went to the Harlan family home for additional confirmation. Read more…

Lest you thought Ben Roethlisberger would fail to keep us sufficiently entertained the rest of the summer, his recent trip to Columbus was an eventful one.

Friday Roethlisberger was in Columbus to play golf at Muirfield Village. (Muirfield is the home of Jack Nicklaus‘ signature PGA Tour event, The Memorial.) Roethlisberger’s Friday appearance at Muirfield was noted in the Tweet above by ESPN The Magazine reporter Ashleigh Ignelzi.

The night before Roethlisberger’s round, Ohio State graduate student and aspiring Playboy model Gretchen Cottam also sent out the above Tweet from Columbus.

Then there was Roethlisberger’s actual round of golf, which somehow led to a police report being filed.

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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released 56 DVDs worth of audio and video interviews from the closed investigation of Ben Roethlisberger’s alleged sexual misconduct at a Georgia bar last March.

Photos from the scene and surveillance tapes from the investigation were also released.

Included in those videos is the woman who accused Roethlisberger of sexual assault. TMZ.com has posted some of her interview online.

The PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW reports:

The interviews also include Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Ed Joyner, who was Roethlisberger’s bodyguard, and other members of his entourage.

Today’s release of recordings and documents is mandated under Georgia statute and follows the release of four volumes of paper files compiled by the joint Milledgeville Police Department and GBI investigation.

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Ben Roethlisberger’s extracurriculars in Milledgeville have been memorialized by rapper Eminem, who included a mention of the Steelers QB in a new song called Despicable.

(Headphones)

Lyric: “F— that, I’d rather turn this club into a bar room brawl. Get as rowdy as Roethlisberger in a bathroom stall.”

The audio is extremely not safe for work.

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Carl Prine of the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW recently examined the possibility that Ben Roethlisberger’s alleged anti-social behavior could be connected to head trauma suffered during NFL games and as the result of a motorcycle accident.

People who suffer repeated head injuries often exhibit signs of aggression, childishness, impaired self-control, inappropriate sexual activity and alcohol abuse, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“Ben Roethlisberger is a guy with a lot of concussions,” said famed forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht. “It would be a very wise decision, a very appropriate one, for the NFL to test him for damage related to them. That’s being very fair to Ben. It’s conceivable to think that there is a possibility that those concussions have led to some behavioral issues.“

This isn’t the first time that unfortunate social behavior by Pittsburgh Steelers has been linked to brain injuries.

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At least one official Pittsburgh civic enterprise has traded in Ben Roethlisberger for Mario Lemieux as the city’s favorite son: The Pittsburgh Zoo.

(Photo Credits: WPXI, Mondesi’s House)

Zoo officials today took down Roethlisberger’s name from a prominent park display that compares the heights of elephants to other species. Roethlisberger’s name was replaced on the display by Penguins hockey hero Lemieux. (Both are 6-foot-5.)

Apparently the folks running the zoo weren’t the only reason for the change. Read more…

Things continue to get worse for Ben Roethlisberger as more details surface from the 572-page investigation report assembled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

This time, the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION scares out details from the report that document another “unwanted advance” that once again included the Steelers quarterback exposing his genitals to a female. Read more…

Carl Prine of the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW has new information on the aftermath of the March 5 sexual assault accusation against Ben Roethlisberger at a Georgia bar that was not pursued by the local district attorney as a criminal case.

(Milledgeville Police Patrolman Blash No Longer On Force)

Prine on the accuser in the incident, a 20-year-old college student:

The Tribune-Review doesn’t name the alleged victims of sexual abuse. Her friends, however, told the Trib on Monday that she has left school. Her attorney, Lee Parks, in a written statement said that she is seeking therapy because of the alleged incident.

Prine also had an interesting confrontation today with Roethlisberger associate and Pennsylvania State Trooper Ed Joyner, who was cited in the GBI investigative report by three different witnesses as having an alleged role in the incident between quarterback and the accuser. Read more…

Steelers Owner Art Rooney II confirmed today that he’ll be making the call, with consultation from Roger Goodell, on the discipline doled out to Ben Roethlisberger.

Also Thursday, TheSmokingGun.com posted documents from the investigation into the sexual assault allegation made against Roethlisberger in a Georgia bar on March 5. Some of those documents are disturbing, to say the least. Excerpt:

One witness, Ann Marie Lubatti, told investigators that she saw one of Roethlisberger’s bodyguards guide the alleged victim to a side door. Lubatti said that she immediately approached another bodyguard and said, “This isn’t right. My friend is back there with Ben. She needs to come back right now.” Lubatti, who described Roethlisberger as “noticeably intoxicated,” said she was rebuffed by the bodyguard, who remarked, “I don’t know what you are talking about,” according to the below statement.

When Lubatti later spotted her friend, the alleged victim said, “We need to go now.” Lubatti said the woman told her that Roethlisberger “walked back to where she was with his penis already out of his pants. She told him that they shouldn’t be doing this and that it wasn’t right.” The woman told Lubatti that Roethlisberger had followed her into the bathroom and shut the door. “She continued to say she didn’t want to have sex, but he kept saying, “No, it’s OK.” Lubatti said that her friend told of having unprotected sex with Roethlisberger. After hearing her friend’s account, Lubatti and another woman, Nicole Biancofiore, “walked up to the first cop we saw and told them what happened.”

Sounds almost as if Roethlisberger and his bodyguard buddies had themselves a system. If those witness accounts are true, what Roethlisberger and his associates did was mind-bogglingly sick.

If I’m Rooney, Roethlisberger is gone. You can’t have that guy representing a franchise like the Steelers. As Mike Singletary once said about Vernon Davis: “Can’t do it.“

Judy Battista of the NEW YORK TIMES reports today that the company that produced beef jerky endorsed by Ben Roethlisberger has moved to drop its contract with the quarterback.

(Roethlisberger no longer Soft! Tender!)

Ty Ballou, owner of Pittsburgh-based PLB Sports, Inc., confirmed the news to Battista and made clear that Roethlisberger’s offseason problems led him to the decision.

“We’ve made a lot of money together. I’m leaving a lot on the table by terminating this contract. Even thought there were no criminal charges, there are just enough issues here that it’s the best interests of PLB Sports to break ties.

“I can’t imagine anyone touching Ben Roethlisberger. Enough is enough. I hope there is a suspension. At some point in time, Ben has got to put himself in the right position and understand what it means to be a celebrity, a quarterback, a Steelers player.

Ballou told Darren Rovell of CNBC that he was comfortable breaking his contract with Roethlisberger because of a morals clause in the deal.
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