New England Patriorts backup quarterback Tim Tebow tried to keep Aaron Hernandez out of trouble during a 2007 bar argument while both were playing at the University of Florida. Tebow was not able to stop then-17 year old Hernandez from punching the restaurant manager, who subsequently loss hearing for 4-6 weeks.
The fight broke out at 1 a.m. at the Swamp near the University of Florida campus, according to ABC News. Hernandez tried to leave without paying a bill for two alcoholic drinks, according to a Gaineville police report, telling the server that he didn’t order them.
Tebow told police that he tried “to help resolve the conflict,” the report states. He encouraged Hernandez to leave peacefully and offered to pay the bill. Instead, Hernandez punched the manager with his right fist and fled the bar.
Police tracked down Hernandez around 3 a.m. that morning. According to the report, he told the police that the victim “got in his face” outside the bar despite his repeated claim that he did not order the two alcoholic drinks he had consumed.
The victim told police the next day that his doctor said the injury in his right ear would take four to six weeks to heal. The police officers then took out a sworn complaint for felony battery. But Hernandez was never formally charged.
Hernandez is in custody at Bristol County jail, where he has been held since June 26, for he was charged with first degree murder and weapons violations. Moreover, the former Patriots tight-end is facing a civil lawsuit filed last month that claims Hernandez shot someone in the face after leaving a strip club in Miami and blew out his eye.
Bristol County court judge order Hernandez to be held without bail for the alleged murder his 27-year-old friend Odin Lloyd. The murdered victim’s body was recovered in a sand and gravel pit less than a mile from the $1.3 million home in North Attleborough Hernandez shares with his fiancé.
