A preliminary hearing was held Friday for the Bronx high school football player charged with manslaughter in the choking death of his mom's ex-boyfriend. NY1 Bronx Reporter Erin Clark filed the following report.

18-year-old Luis Moux did not speak as he was rushed out of a Bronx courthouse Friday, flanked by supporters.

The teen has been charged with strangling his mother's ex-boyfriend, Stanley Washington.

In a brief courtroom appearance Friday, Moux's lawyer said the teen would appear before a grand jury Sept. 6 to explain his version of events.

The defense will be that Washington was a domestic abuser who was drunk and high when he attacked Moux's mother, and that the teen was trying to save her.

"He has at least three domestic violence incidences where he has hospitalized this young man's mother," said Moux's attorney Walter Fields. "It's our information, based on our investigation, that not only was he intoxicated with alcohol, but he was on PCP."

But Washington's family doesn't see it that way.

"He was never violent to me. I've never seen this man violent to me, to a woman. He had a heart of gold," said Djuana Martinez, Stanley Washington's wife. "So this that they're saying, I don't understand."

They said Moux made a decision to kill, and they want him prosecuted.

"It was too much for him to be protecting his mom. He said he had a bat in his hand. Why did you not hit my brother with a bat?" said Ronald Washington, Stanley Washington's brother. "So that's intent."

The teen, who remains free on bail, has enjoyed an outpouring of support since his arrest. Nearly 30,000 people have lent their names to an online petition that calls for charges against him to be dropped.

Just last year, there was a similar case in which a man was charged with manslaughter for beating someone who tried to rape his wife. Those charges were later dropped by the Bronx district attorney.

Moux is scheduled to face a judge again Sept. 25.