SmashMouth

A Texas grand jury has returned an indictment for Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Aqib Talib, two months after he was charged with firing a gun at his sister's boyfriend.


Talib
Police, who arrested Talib on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, have said they believe Talib and his mother, Okolo Talib, shot at the man March 21. The man was not injured.

Talib, 25, has been out on $25,000 bond since March 30. The indictment out of Dallas was not a return of a guilty verdict -- it only means there's an "official" charge. But no evidence on Talib's side has been presented.

"The grand jury was not privy to a number of important facts," Talib's attorney, Jay Reisinger, said Friday in a statement. "We are very confident that once we have the opportunity to present all of the facts, this matter will be resolved in Mr. Talib's favor.

"Aqib looks forward to putting this matter behind him and returning to the game of football."

A Garland police spokesman said in a Tampa radio interview in March that detectives had met with Talib before making the decision to charge him with a crime. The spokesman said the charge is a second-degree felony, which can carry a prison sentence of five to 20 years.

Talib, who went to L.V. Berkner High School in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, played at the University of Kansas and was a first-round pick by the Buccaneers in 2008. He has been in trouble before. He was suspended by the NFL for the first game of last season after a 2009 altercation with a cab driver.

He was entered into a pretrial diversion program and ordered to attend anger management classes after the incident with the cab driver, with whom he reached a financial settlement.

Despite the lockout, commissioner Roger Goodell has said players are still subject to the league's personal conduct policy and that disciplinary action can be taken after the labor situation is resolved.

Talib has 15 interceptions in three NFL seasons.

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