As expected, a federal indictment has been handed down to Ole Miss football signee Jamar Hornsby for an aggravated assault.

You know the backstory by now — Hornsby was dismissed from Florida’s team after off-the-field incidents (including using a dead girl’s credit card), he signed with Ole Miss after a year at a junior college, then was arrested in March for allegedly beating a man with a set of brass knuckles and stealing six dollars from his pocket.

The brass knuckles were a part of the initial police report, but they were not mentioned in the federal indictment.

“As we’ve said all along, there were never any brass knuckles involved,” said Hornsby’s attorney, Steve Farese.

The fact that the brass knuckles were not mentioned in the new indictment “semi-vindicates us as far as this was just a fight.”

I’m guessing prosecuting attorneys won’t see it that way, but hey, Farese is speaking on behalf of his client so we can expect some positive spin.

Houston Nutt has refused to take any action with Hornsby (other than holding him out of practice) until the court system wraps up his case.  We’ll see if today’s federal indictment forces Nutt to act further. 

Or maybe he, too, feels this federal indictment is a “semi-vindication” of Hornsby.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Homepage, The Blotter . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.