Judge Delays Mark Sanchez Trial for 3rd Time
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The criminal trial for Mark Sanchez, the former FOX Sports analyst charged after a fight with a truck driver in downtown Indianapolis, has been postponed for a third time.
The trial, scheduled to begin on April 9, is now slated for May 28. A pretrial conference is set for May 20.
Online court records show Judge James Osborn granted the defense team’s request for a continuance on Wednesday, the same day it was filed.
It is the third time Judge Osborn has rescheduled the trial at the request of Sanchez’s attorneys. In November, he agreed to move the trial start date from December to March. In late February, Osborn granted a second continuance, shifting the trial date from March to April.
The reason for the continuance was unclear. Sanchez’s lawyers told a Marion County judge on Oct. 22 that Sanchez was still recovering from injuries he sustained in the altercation with 69-year-old truck driver Perry Tole.
Prosecutors say Sanchez was intoxicated when he approached Tole as he sat in his box truck in an alley behind the Westin Hotel on West Washington Street just after midnight on Oct. 4.
Tole told investigators he was collecting cooking oil for a work assignment when Sanchez walked up and opened the truck door. He said that when he got out of the truck, Sanchez told him he “wasn’t allowed to be parked at the loading docks.”
Sanchez then climbed into the cab of the box truck and started looking around. Tole said that he tried to get his phone from the truck, but Sanchez kept blocking him and eventually shoved him backward.
Tole told police he felt like he was in danger, so he reached for his pepper spray and sprayed Sanchez in the face. “The pepper spray appeared to have an effect on Sanchez for a moment, (who) wiped his face and again advanced,” court papers said.
Believing that Sanchez was going to kill him, police say, Tole reached for his knife and stabbed Sanchez “two or three times in the chest.”
Video from a hotel security camera showed Tole being thrown into a dumpster and a pile of wooden pallets. Sanchez then approached Tole while he was on the ground, with the driver telling police he was “not aware of what Sanchez was doing to him, whether he was punching him or otherwise striking him.”
Tole told investigators that he “somehow made it to his feet, and when Sanchez came at him, he stabbed him (for the last time).” Sanchez then ran north down the alley. He was later admitted to an Indianapolis hospital and treated for multiple stab wounds.
Sanchez, who was in Indianapolis for Fox’s coverage of the Oct. 5 game between the Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders, told police at the hospital that he “did not know who did this to him or where it happened.”
Sanchez faces a felony battery charge and several misdemeanor charges, including public intoxication and unauthorized entry of a vehicle.
He could spend up to six years in prison if convicted of the felony charge. He also faces a separate civil lawsuit from Tole.
Sanchez was let go by Fox Sports in early November and replaced by former Purdue University quarterback Drew Brees.
