PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Sentencing for a teen who stabbed three people outside a Ponte Vedra Beach restaurant in June of 2023 has been pushed back as he undergoes testing for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE.
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In court filings, attorneys for Spencer Pearson said they are just now learning that new science shows signs of CTE can be detected in brain scans for living subjects, including in young athletes.
Pearson, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was supposed to be sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to aggravated battery and two counts of attempted murder. He stabbed his ex-girlfriend 17 times, as well as her mother and a bystander who tried to help, before attempting to slash his own throat.
On Oct. 18, a week before Pearson was set to be sentenced, his attorneys asked the court to push it back, writing, “An underlying issue in the case is whether Defendant’s suffering repetitive head impacts (RHI) over the course of him playing tackle football from the ages of 6 through 18 causes him to suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).”
Forensic psychologist Dr. Justin D’Arienzo explained how CTE works.
“It is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder due to repeated injuries to the brain, and it can happen in sports and the military,” he said. “Usually, we’re talking about repeated head injuries, and as a result, there are behavioral and cognitive changes that occur.”
Changes can include increased aggression, impulsivity, and as the disease progresses, more cognitive difficulties.
D’Arienzo said CTE can contribute to criminality.
Pearson’s attorneys cite a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Neurology in 2023 examining the donated brains of 152 deceased contact sport athletes under the age of 30. The study found 41% of them had CTE, and most of them played at the high school and college levels. Their sports included football, ice hockey, rugby, soccer, and wrestling. The most common cause of their death was suicide, the study said.
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“I believe in this case because we’re waiting on sentencing, they’re going to use this to mitigate, to reduce the sentence, to show that this gentleman may have had a series of head injuries that led to the CTE that then led to him being impulsive and irrational and having this very aggressive outburst and that and that, if he never would have had that CTE, he never would have acted in this manner,” D’Arienzo said.
Court records show Pearson will be transported for a brain scan next week.
Pearson’s sentencing has been rescheduled for Nov. 22.