On Sunday, three weeks after his arrest on a probation violation, former Atlanta Falcons star Jamal Anderson was released from the Gwinnett County jail — and promptly sent to Hall County's detention center.
Anderson, 44, who has had a checkered post-career life, was arrested Dec. 19 after officials said he "failed to show for probation" in connection with a 2014 arrest for driving under the influence. As is standard when probation is violated, the former running back — famous for his "Dirty Bird" celebration dance and leading the Falcons to the 1998 Super Bowl — was not immediately eligible for bond. But he was granted release during a Friday morning court hearing, attorney Arturo Corso told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Anderson's freedom was delayed, however, by a similar probation violation warrant issued by authorities in Hall County, where he was arrested for DUI in September 2015.
Anderson was booked into the Hall County jail early Sunday afternoon, less than three hours after his release in Gwinnett. Corso said in an email Monday afternoon that a judge had agreed to release Anderson on “time served,” and, by 2:30 p.m., Anderson was no longer listed in Hall County jail’s online “inmate population list.”
The tumultuous couple of days marked just the latest events in Anderson’s rocky post-football years.
Anderson's most recent arrest in Gwinnett County came five days after an unrelated incident in which he allegedly exposed himself to a clerk at a Suwanee gas station. Police said he appeared intoxicated during the incident, but he was not arrested.
Anderson was detained, however, following the aforementioned DUIs in Gwinnett County (in which he was sentenced to 12 months probation) and Hall County (for which he was sentenced to 24 months probation and 12 days in jail, which he served early last year). In August, he was arrested in Forsyth County and charged with driving on a suspended license.
Other previous run-ins with the law include a 2012 DUI in DeKalb County and a February 2009 incident in which Anderson was charged with cocaine and marijuana possession after an off-duty officer said he saw the athlete using drugs at a Buckhead bar.
Those charges were later dropped.
Little insight into the driving force behind Anderson’s issues has been offered. But Corso, the former running back’s attorney, has a theory — in December, he suggested “concussion traumas” from Anderson’s days on the gridiron were playing a role.
“... the concussion trauma syndromes which are the subject of litigation [involving the National Football League] often leaves its victims to suffer depression and to deal with things by self-medicating with alcohol or the like,” Corso wrote in an email to The AJC.
“The NFL has offered to bring Jamal into a therapeutic treatment program to address these matters, and we hope to do so successfully as soon as he's released from jail in Gwinnett County.”
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