Back in October, former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez was involved in an altercation in downtown Indianapolis. The former USC and New York Jets QB ended up getting stabbed in the incident.
Sanchez had been employed as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports, but the network let him go in November. While it’s taken some time to get his legal situation settled, one NFL insider suggested that from the moment Sanchez’s trouble arose, the QB was headed for some dark days.
Mark Sanchez’s Sentence Yet to Be Determined
Sanchez has already struck a plea deal, and NFL insider Mike Florio shared his views during a segment on “Pro Football Talk.”
“Well, they reached the resolution pursuant to which Mark Sanchez will plead guilty,” Florio said. “Now, they haven’t announced the charges he’s pleading guilty to, but he’s done a plea deal. That’s very common in criminal cases.”
What is all this silliness pertaining to? It all boils down to a scrum between Sanchez, a former NFL QB, and a 69-year-old truck driver with a slight frame.
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“It all arises from the fight between him and a 69-year-old guy who is skinnier than me,” Florio explained. “Truck driver who was at a hotel in Indianapolis to swap out the used grease from the fryer. Sanchez allegedly said, ‘You can’t park your truck there.’ To which the guy presumably said, ‘What?’ And it all went downhill from there. They had video cameras all over the place. Look, Sanchez was dead to rights on this one.”
What’s even more interesting here is that the person who stabbed Sanchez was never even charged with a criminal act.
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“They never questioned the guy who stabbed him,” Florio continued. “The guy stabbed him three times, and they never charged the guy. They never questioned his account. You got a 6-foot-3, professional athlete in his 30s. You got a 69-year-old truck driver that doesn’t weigh but a buck-0-five. You’re not going to conclude that he was chasing Sanchez around with a knife.”
“This was always going to end badly for Sanchez,” Florio added. “It’ll just be interesting to see whether or not he has to do jail time for this. I bet at most it’s going to be house arrest. He’s not doing hard time in Indianapolis. But it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.”
It will indeed be interesting to see what type of punishment Sanchez will be facing for the odd incident he encountered. Yet some of that could be shaped by factors that still have to play out in the justice system, including the prosecutor and the victim’s reaction to the punishment.
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“There are two independent tracks of the justice system, criminal and civil,” Florio added. “Sometimes the resolution of the civil case will dramatically influence the attitude of the victim in the criminal case.
“In many cases, the prosecutor takes his or her lead from the victim. If the victim is saying, ‘I want this taken all the way through to the end,’ the prosecutor is more likely to do it. If the victim is placated by, for example, a sizable settlement of the civil case, then we’re willing to allow him to plea to a charge that doesn’t entail jail time.”
The good news here, if there is one, is that the statements to this point have been “positive” and as Florio stated, they’re also “working on a settlement of the civil case.” Soon enough, it may all go away.
“The statements are all very positive. They’re working on a settlement of the civil case, and it looks like this whole thing is going to go away less than a year after it got started,” Florio concluded.
Surely, Sanchez would like to move on from this embarrassment as quickly as he can. From the sound of it, a resolution is coming soon.
