Palm Beach County deputies arrested a former NFL player after his pregnant girlfriend said he shoved and threatened to punch her in the parking lot of a Boynton Beach-area bar.
Tre Mason, 32, is charged with aggravated battery on a pregnant person and threatening to commit domestic violence, allegations he denied. A judge released the former Auburn running back from jail Sunday on $1,000 bail and ordered him to refrain from all “violent contact” with his girlfriend, whose name is redacted from court records.
Mason is represented by the Office of the Public Defender, which, as a practice, doesn’t comment on open cases.
Mason grew up in the Lake Worth Beach area and stood out in football, basketball and track at Park Vista High School. He went on to play running back at Auburn, where he earned first-team All-American honors and the SEC named him Offensive Player of the Year in 2013.
He played two seasons for the NFL’s St. Louis Rams and then one in the Canadian Football League.
Mason’s girlfriend told deputies he called her around 11 p.m. Friday to tell her he was coming home. When she woke at about 1 a.m. and he still had not returned, she drove to Elmo’s, a bar on South Military Trail near Boynton Beach, and found him socializing with other people.
The woman told deputies she approached her boyfriend, took his car keys, removed her house key from the ring and handed him the rest before returning to her car to leave. She said Mason followed her to the car and stood in the open driver’s side doorway, preventing her from driving away.
The woman said a “push-and-shove” confrontation followed, with her trying to move him aside and him pushing her backward into the driver’s seat, ordering her to put the car in park.
“I’m gonna go to jail tonight because you keep trying me,” the woman said Mason told her. “I’m gonna punch you in the face.”
The woman told deputies she’d been in a prior abusive relationship, so Mason’s threat scared her enough to call 911. The dispatcher answered, and Mason left.
Deputies who interviewed the woman said she had no visible injuries. They found Mason later and read him his rights to silence and an attorney, which he agreed to waive. He agreed that he and his girlfriend, pregnant with his child, had argued, but denied touching her or threatening to punch her.
Unconvinced, deputies arrested him anyway.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. Reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Ex-NFL player accused of shoving pregnant girlfriend at Boynton bar
Reporting by Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
