Bryce Thompson‘s legal issues have officially come to an end.
A Knox County (Tenn.) judge, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported, dismissed a misdemeanor domestic assault that Thompson had been facing after the alleged victim, the Tennessee cornerback’s girlfriend of four years, stated during a preliminary hearing Monday that she never feared the player following an incident last month. “There was no point during the argument that I was scared or felt like he was going to hurt me, and he never touched me,” the woman told the judge.
“There wasn’t a crime committed. It had to be dismissed,” John Valliant, Thompson’s attorney, told the News Sentinel. “There is not much more I can say than that. From the very beginning, she has – even on the day of the incident – she said the same thing then that she said today.
“This thing that he was charged with, fear is a key element of it. You have to be afraid that your assailant is going to do you bodily harm.”
Thompson was arrested in late August on one count of misdemeanor domestic assault. Thompson, who allegedly threatened to “slap the s**t out of” the alleged victim as well as threatening to “shoot up the school,” was subsequently suspended by the UT football program. Shortly after that arrest, it was reported that, in January of 2018, another woman with whom Thompson was having a romantic relationship obtained a restraining order against him after the then-high schooler allegedly threatened to kill her and another male.
The night of Thompson’s arrest this year, his girlfriend told responding police officers that her boyfriend “has a bad temper and has punched walls during past arguments.”
Two weeks ago, the Vols reinstated Thompson. While he didn’t play in the Week 3 win over an FCS school, he made his 2019 debut this past weekend in the loss to No. 9 Florida.
Thompson started 10 games his first season in Knoxville last year, leading the Vols in interceptions with three and earning Freshman All-American honors.
