Anthony Olivieri
Former NFL star Antonio Brown appeared Wednesday in a Miami court, where a judge set his bond at $25,000 and placed him on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor while facing an attempted murder charge in Florida.
Brown, 37, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a second-degree attempted murder charge stemming from a May shooting incident at an amateur boxing match. The charge carries a potential 15-year prison sentence and a fine up to $10,000 if he is convicted. Both Brown’s attorney and the prosecutor raised doubts during Wednesday’s hearing about how the alleged victim was injured.
Brown, who appeared at the hearing via Zoom wearing a red jail shirt, was ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, from whom he must stay 500 feet away. Brown was also told that he may not return to the venue where the boxing match took place in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.
When the judge asked if he understood the order, Brown replied, “Yes, ma’am.” Prosecutors sought pretrial detention, claiming he was a flight risk, but the judge denied the request.
Brown’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, pointed out that his client was released by authorities on the night of the incident and traveled to Dubai on business before a warrant for his arrest was issued, maintaining that his client “didn’t flee to Dubai.”
However, a prosecutor said Brown was aware of the pending charge when he left for Dubai, where the former player was arrested last week by U.S. marshals and extradited to New Jersey before being moved to Miami on Tuesday.
According to the arrest warrant, Brown is accused of grabbing a handgun from a security staffer and firing two shots at a man he had gotten into a fistfight with earlier. The alleged victim told investigators that one of the bullets grazed his neck.
Eiglarsh disputed that Nantambu was even hit by gunfire, insisting that the neck injury was from a scratch during a melee that occurred earlier.
In a recorded video interview after the shooting, Eiglarsh contended, Nantambu “says that the scratch on his neck, which he’s talking about, actually came from the melee that occurred while he was attacking my client before the shots rang out.”
Brown and Nantambu had a history of confrontation, and Eiglarsh argued that Brown feared for his safety and acted in self-defense. According to Eiglarsh, Brown retrieved his own gun, for which he has a concealed weapons permit, and fired twice but not at Nantambu.
When asked by the judge if Nantambu was hit by those shots, a prosecutor said “he thought that he was” and “I don’t believe so.”
An attorney for Nantambu, Richard L. Cooper, appeared on Zoom and said it was Brown’s intention to kill Nantambu. “By the grace of God he was not killed,” Cooper said. He said that Brown left for a country, Dubai, from which he believed he couldn’t be extradited and was flaunting his presence there on social media.
Brown, who spent 12 years in the NFL, was an All-Pro wide receiver who last played in 2021 for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but spent most of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. For his career, Brown had 928 receptions for more than 12,000 yards and 83 touchdowns.
He has dealt with various legal problems over the years. Brown previously had been accused of battery of a moving truck driver, several domestic violence charges, failure to pay child support and other incidents. During a 2021 game with the Buccaneers against the New York Jets, Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads and gloves and ran off the field, leading to his release by Tampa Bay and effectively ending his football career.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
