Former NFL great Warren Sapp scored a huge victory over actress Paula Trickey, who sued him for battery after saying he knocked her over at a ESPN Super Bowl party years ago. The judge not only shot down Trickey’s suit for lack of evidence, he also ordered her to pay Sapp’s legal fees.
The 54-year-old actress, who played in “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” and “The O.C.,” said the party was on Jan. 30, 2015, in Scottsdale, Arizona. She claimed that at one point of the party, an intoxicated Sapp was being removed and began running around the room. That’s when she claimed he slammed into her and caused severe injury.
“There are places in my body I didn’t know existed that are still hurting two years later,” Trickey told the Miami Herald shortly after she filed the suit in January 2017, nearly two years after the alleged incident. “I’ve had constant pain shooting through my body since.”
But Sapp said there was no way he could’ve knocked Trickey over because he wasn’t at that party. The seven-time Pro Bowl player was across town hosting another Super Bowl event thrown by the NFL Alumni Association.
The former defensive tackle and his lawyer said Trickey was so intoxicated that night that she was confused about who bowled her over. She was arrested for DUI after the party, which they say backs up their claims that alcohol affected her memory.
Sapp’s lawyers said in a statement that Judge David Haimes, presiding in the 17th Judicial Circuit in Broward County, Florida, issued a ruling in June saying that Trickey’s lawyer “failed to provide any evidence whatsoever to support” the actress’ lawsuit. He also stated that her claims should have been withdrawn. The amount in legal fees Trickey could have to pay Sapp has yet to be determined, but reportedly it could run as high as $100,000. Sapp’s attorneys’ statement says the case “was resolved” in that court last week, although it remains unclear what action the court took then.
“This was a bulls–t case!” Sapp told Page Six this week about the judge’s decision. “They tried to extort me to payout on some s–t I didn’t do. Game over for the other side, its sanction time, baby. I tried every way possible to show they had the wrong person. Literally, no one believed me. … I was not in two places at the same time.”
“We don’t believe in just winning a case, but believe in sending a message to those who wish to act improperly,” Sapp’s lawyer Ricky Patel added. “We will not just beat the opposition, we will annihilate them.”
On Monday, Aug. 31, Sapp appeared to celebrate the judge’s decision by writing on Instagram, “Victory Monday!” next to a photo of himself.
Trickey — who’s a Donald Trump supporter and on Instagram told Jacob Blake’s mother that she should’ve raised him right — hasn’t commented on the ruling yet.
Blake is the 29-year-old Black man who was shot multiple times by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin last month, while he was unarmed and his back was turned.
