FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Patriots cornerback Alfonzo Dennard was arrested and accused of drunk driving Thursday in Nebraska while on probation for assaulting a police officer, the second New England player to get in serious legal trouble this summer.

Dennard's early-morning arrest in Lincoln, Neb., where he was a college star for the Cornhuskers, came 15 days after Aaron Hernandez was charged with murder and three days after Patriots owner Robert Kraft said the club will "be looking at our procedures and auditing how we do things" with regard to character reviews.

"The New England Patriots are extremely disappointed to learn of Alfonzo Dennard's arrest. We take this matter very seriously and are working to get more information on the incident," the team said in a statement.

Dennard's arrest is his second in 15 months. He hasn't served a 30-day jail sentence for the assault outside a Lincoln bar on Apr. 21, 2012. That is scheduled to begin next March. He also was sentenced to two years of probation.

Hernandez, a star tight end, was arrested on June 26 and charged with murder in the killing of Boston semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty. The Patriots cut Hernandez after he was arrested and before the charges were announced.

Dennard and Hernandez both were highly-touted college prospects whose draft stock dropped because of character concerns.

Seven days after being charged with assault, Dennard was drafted in the seventh round last year out of Nebraska by the Patriots. They drafted Hernandez in the fourth round in 2010 after he violated the substance abuse policy at Florida.

"If this stuff is true, then I've been duped and our whole organization has been duped," Kraft said Monday of the case involving Hernandez.

The team did not respond to a request Thursday for Kraft's reaction to Dennard's arrest.

The legal issues are bound to hover over the opening of training camp on July 25. Coach Bill Belichick rarely comments on such matters and instructs his players to do the same.

Belichick has sometimes signed players who had troubles elsewhere if he felt they could help the team win, hoping his disciplined approach and leaders such as Tom Brady and Vince Wilfork and now-retired Patriots including Tedy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel could keep them in line.

Results have been mixed. Running back Corey Dillon and wide receiver Randy Moss, disgruntled on their previous teams, avoided off-field problems with the Patriots and were productive for several seasons. Chad Johnson, then known as Chad Ochocinco, caught just 15 passes in his only season with the Patriots in 2011 but caused no off-field distractions.

Dennard became a starter at cornerback in the seventh game of his rookie season. The other starter, Aqib Talib, was obtained from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Nov. 1 then signed a one-year contract on March 16. He missed his first game with the Patriots while completing a four-game suspension imposed by the NFL for violating its policy on performance-enhancing substances.

Talib had been suspended without pay for the 2010 opener and fined one additional game check for violating the NFL's personal-conduct policy. That followed an altercation with a St. Petersburg cab driver during training camp in 2009. He also had charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas dropped a week before he was due to be tried for allegedly firing a gun at his sister's boyfriend.