Cop: Mario Pender Said He Wouldn't Comply With Arresting Officers Until Jimbo Fisher Showed Up

Over the weekend Florida State running back Delmarick “Mario” Pender was arrested on charges of domestic battery by strangulation and resisting arrest without violence after allegedly hitting and choking the mother of his child, and was promptly dismissed by the team. Below you can find the probable cause affidavit released by Tallahassee police.

According to the affidavit, on Saturday morning an officer went to a home on Sharkey Street after getting a 911 call reporting a man hitting a woman and dragging her into a house by her hair. When the officer arrived, she heard a “verbal altercation” and a woman crying, the affidavit said. The officer called for backup and, believing the woman might be distress or hurt, pushed open the front door. Inside she saw Pender on top of a woman “straddling her body, with his hands around her neck,” according to the affidavit.

While waiting for backup to arrive, the officer wrote that she saw injuries to the woman’s face and neck. The woman had a scratch to her left temple, bruising to her right eye, and several scratches and marks on neck with one on her upper chest. She told the officer that she had been with Pender for a decade, they had a one-and-a-half year old child together, and that “relationships never end well,” the affidavit said. She said they had been arguing and he had grabbed her by the throat but “he did not mean to injure her.”

Several times, Pender told the officer “we were just wrestling” and “don’t you and your boyfriend wrestle?”, the affidavit said. The woman provided a sworn statement but refused to have her injuries photographed. Pender was arrested Saturday morning and dropped from the team hours later.

You can read the full probable cause affidavit below or by clicking here.

Correction (6:33 p.m.): The headline has been changed to reflect that it isn’t clear from the report if Fisher showed up, just that Pender “refused to walk up to the vehicle until a supervisor and Jimbo Fisher (FSU football coach) responded to the scene” but never specifically says that Fisher arrived.