INDIANAPOLIS — Mark Sanchez’s friends and former teammates are baffled by the charges levied against him — and asking for answers about how the “nice guy” quarterback wound up bloody on an Indiana street, accused of savagely attacking a 69-year-old man with hearing aids following a drunken night out.
Video obtained by The Post shows the blood-soaked 38-year-old former Jets play caller — who led the beleaguered team to back-to-back AFC Championship Games — stumbling toward a downtown Indianapolis bar after he was stabbed multiple times during a fight in an alley after midnight Saturday.
It’s a dramatic departure from the Sanchez friends remember.
“I’ve known Mark since 2009, that’s 16 years, and he doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body,” Nick Mangold, who played with Sanchez through the 2012 season, told The Post.
“For something of this nature to happen, something obviously wasn’t right that night, and I hope they get to the bottom of it.”
Mangold called the charges “completely out of character,” adding “the Mark I know wouldn’t do this.”
Prosecutors upgraded the charges against Sanchez on Monday, hitting him with a felony battery rap that carries up to six years in prison. He’s also charged with public intoxication and unlawful entry into a motor vehicle.
The truck driver, Perry Tole, told cops he stabbed Sanchez multiple times in self-defense after being attacked. Sanchez then took Tole’s knife and slashed his cheek open, cutting the man’s tongue in the process.
Tole is now suing Sanchez, whose career NFL earnings were more than $74 million, alleging he was permanently disfigured in the attack.
Timeline of the Mark Sanchez stabbing and arrest
Friday Night
- Mark Sanchez, 38, is in Indianapolis to serve as a Fox Sports analyst for the Raiders-Colts game on Sunday. He’s observed acting “erratically,” doing “wind sprints” in the alley behind Loughmiller’s Pub and Eatery in the downtown.
Just after midnight
- A grease truck driver picking up cooking oil from a nearby hotel parks his truck in the loading dock, blocking the alley where Sanchez is doing sprints.
- Sanchez approaches the driver to try to get him to move and eventually gets into an altercation where he body-slams him toward the wall and then to the ground.
- The driver sprayed Sanchez with mace or pepper spray, but the former NFL quarterback continues attacking him.
- The driver pulls a knife and stabs Sanchez two or three times in the chest, believing, “This guy is trying to kill me.”
- Sanchez turns around and heads up the alley.
12:30 a.m.
- Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers respond to a report of a person shot. They locate Sanchez in Loughmiller’s Pub.
- It’s later reported that Sanchez is uncooperative with responding officers. He tells the detective he can only remember “grabbing for a window” and nothing else about the incident.
- Sanchez is rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
- The driver also suffered “significant injuries,” including lacerations to his cheek and jaw, with a cut that allegedly went through his cheek and hit his tongue.
Saturday
- Sanchez undergoes surgery for stab wounds to the chest, and is stable.
- He is arrested at the hospital and charged with misdemeanor counts of battery resulting in injury, public intoxication, and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle.
Sunday
- Sanchez is discharged from the hospital Sunday morning and transferred directly to central booking at Marion County Jail, where he reportedly posts his $300 cash bond.
Monday
Sanchez, who was in Indianapolis to work Sunday’s Raiders-Colts game as a Fox Sports analyst, was reportedly running “wind sprints” in the alley between two hotels around midnight when Tole pulled his truck into a loading dock in the back street as part of his graveyard shift job changing out fry grease at the local hotels.
According to cops, Sanchez immediately became aggressive, climbed into the cab and demanded the Tole move the vehicle, claiming that the hotel manager told him he couldn’t be there.
Tole, who had taken out his hearing aids because of the noise from his truck, said he initially didn’t understand what Sanchez wanted.
Here’s the latest on the Mark Sanchez stabbing and arrest:
When he tried to call his manager, Sanchez — who allegedly reeked of booze and was slurring his words — attacked him, court docs allege.
A confrontation ensued, and Sanchez purportedly slammed the driver into a wall and threw him to the ground before Tole pepper-sprayed him, then stabbed him in self-defense when the deterrent seemingly had no effect. He told police he believed “this guy is trying to kill me.”
Sanchez then stumbled away, where he tracked blood around the corner and down the street, before ending up in nearby Loughmiller’s Pub and Eatery, where a manager tried to stanch the bleeding and called paramedics.
Video from a business along the street showed Sanchez clutching what appears to be a bloody injury to his torso.
He told police he has no memory of the incident, while the driver was hospitalized, with photos showing him in a neck brace with a deep gash across his left cheek.
The driver’s family told The Post late Sunday that he is “OK,” and they are in shock over the incident.
None of it makes sense for people who know Sanchez, who lives in a $6.6 million house in a ritzy gated community in his native Southern California.
“He is a great guy. He’s not an aggressive guy,” said Chane Moline, who was close with Sanchez when they played football together in high school.
“As far as his character is concerned, he’s a first-class guy.”
Moline added: “He was always polished. We always knew he was gonna be successful. We knew he was gonna be a reporter, you could just tell.
“It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Moline said.
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