Former USC quarterback Mark Sanchez is facing a felony charge after his physical altercation with a 69-year-old truck driver this weekend left the other man with what the prosecuting attorney described Monday as “significant and very severe” injuries.
Marion County, Ind., prosecutor Ryan Mears told reporters at a news conference Monday that the 38-year-old former NFL player and current Fox Sports analyst was being charged with a level five felony of battery involving serious bodily injury, which Mears said could result in one to six years in prison.
After a preliminary probable cause affidavit was filed by the IMPD on Saturday, Sanchez was charged with three misdemeanors — battery resulting in injury, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication.
Further investigation by the IMPD preceded the filing of a second probable cause affidavit Monday morning, which led to the felony charge against Sanchez.
“Once we were provided with additional information about the victim’s current medical condition, it became clear to us that additional charges needed to be filed,” Mears said during the joint news conference with Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Chris Bailey.
Mears added that it’s possible that more charges could come connected to the incident that occurred late Friday night and into early Saturday morning in an alley outside a downtown Indianapolis hotel.
“One of the things that I’m going to stress to everybody is that we are still in the early stages of this investigation,” Mears said. “Chief and his team have a number of search warrants that are still outstanding. They’re still tracking down additional information. This is, by no means, the end of this investigation. This, by no means, means that these are going to be final charges that we move forward with.”
An initial court hearing scheduled for Tuesday morning has been postponed until Nov. 4, ESPN reports, as Sanchez remains hospitalized and in stable condition.
According to the first IMPD affidavit, which was based on hotel surveillance footage and a statement the truck driver gave to the police, Sanchez accosted the driver of a box truck that had backed into the hotel’s loading docks.
Sanchez, who was in town to call Sunday’s Raiders-Colts game for Fox Sports, allegedly smelled of alcohol at the time.
During the ensuing altercation, Sanchez threw the man toward a wall and also onto the ground, the affidavit said, before the driver, believing he was in danger, sprayed Sanchez with pepper spray and eventually stabbed him.
The truck driver suffered a laceration on his left cheek and was taken to a different hospital than Sanchez, the affidavit said. Max Lewis of WXIN-TV in Indianapolis reported Sunday that the driver’s family, which wished to remain anonymous, said that the cut “went through his cheek and hit his tongue,” making speech difficult.
Lewis also posted photos he said were provided by the family that showed the driver in a hospital bed with sheets that appeared to have several blood stains on them near the area of the cut on the man’s cheek. The man, whose eyes have been blackened out to protect his identity, is wearing what appears to be a neck brace and is hooked up to monitors.
Later on Sunday, family members told the New York Post of the driver, “He’s OK.”
They added: “We are talking to lawyers first. We want to be careful what’s said.”
According to the first affidavit, the driver was at the loading as part of his job with a company that recycles and disposes of commercial cooking oil. Sanchez allegedly confronted him and said that the hotel manager had told Sanchez he didn’t want the driver to replace the cooking oil.
“Certainly the thing that stands out to us is this was a situation that did not need to occur,” Mears said. “… We’re literally talking about people fighting over a parking space or a dispute about where people are parking, and it resulted in someone receiving just incredibly significant injuries.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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