A drill, an injury and Tyreek Hill’s dog: Former Dolphins star’s trial begins
Tyreek Hill’s dog is at the center of a civil trial that began Thursday over what happened the day a social media influencer suffered a knee fracture after a friendly football training session at the former Miami Dolphins player’s Southwest Ranches mansion.
Sophie Hall and her legal team blame Hill for roughhousing during the training, causing the alleged “permanent” injury, while he contends she tripped over his puppy, Chapo.
Opening statements and testimonies in the trial began Thursday afternoon before Broward Circuit Court Judge David Haimes, a bit less than three years after the training session in June 2023.
“She left the turf with broken bones,” Hall’s attorney John Gdanski told the jury, selected on Wednesday and consists of seven women and two men.
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Hall, 36, sued Hill in February 2024 for battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. She is seeking up to $75,000 in damages. The single mother, based in the Tampa Bay area, was born in England and moved as a child with her family to Florida. She boasts over 2 million Instagram followers.
“[Hall] was a football mom for a year before this,” said Hill’s attorney Robert Horwitz. “She went to football practices. She knew and assumed the risk.”
Friendly football session
A football training camp was exactly what Hall believed her then-10-year-old son needed for his budding sports career, and it could help him find and grow with a positive male role model, she said during her testimony.
Pitching a few options to him, he insisted upon “Tyreek Hill Football Camp” in Boca Raton.
Hill had recently joined the Miami Dolphins via a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs in March 2022. The team gave him a four-year, $120 million deal, making him the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL by average annual value. He was released from the Dolphins in February and is now a free agent.
READ MORE: Dolphins set to release eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Tyreek Hill
So, on May 24, 2023, she signed up her son. She received an Instagram DM from Hill the next day.
“Not,” is all the message from Hill to Hall read.
“Not what,” she responded, to which he said she was not 6’1, as she described herself in her Instagram profile.
This was the beginning of what became daily communication between the two that eventually evolved into an intimate relationship, her attorney said.
Believing Hill could be a good role model for her son, she continued talking with him, even asking him to give her son a pep talk because it would make him happy, she told the jury.
From the beginning of their chats, the exchanges were flirty, both legal teams said, with Hill telling Hall he would make a good stepfather.
The two discussed going on vacation to Puerto Rico, even talking with Hill’s sister, who books flights for him.
“I was excited,” Hall said of the vacation, but added she then felt “overzealous” about the situation and realized she didn’t know Hill well enough to go on the trip with him.
Instead, Hill invited her to stay at his sprawling $7 million, two-story, seven-bedroom Southwest Ranches mansion for a long weekend in June 2023. Hall agreed, and Hill booked a flight for her.
Friendly game turned violent?
“This case is about an aggressive act,” Gdanski told the jury, emphasizing that what was supposed to have been a fun vacation ended in a traumatic injury.
Arriving at Hill’s mansion, she placed her luggage in his room and then met his mother and sister. Later in the day, Hill began training outside with his personal trainer.
Hall eventually went to watch and asked to participate in drills. The two agreed to do offensive lineman drills, as that is the position her son wanted to play.
“Ms. Hall did as instructed and on contact with [Hill], caused Hill to be pushed backward, garnering laughter from the witnesses present at the time, including [Hill’s] mother, sister, friend and trainer,” the lawsuit read.
Whether Hall was able to push back the 5’10, 190-pound wide receiver, according to NFL.com, was debated in the courtroom. Hall and her legal team noted that she was 6’1 and 260 pounds with an athletic background as well, playing and coaching basketball in the past. Horwitz, while not outrightly dismissing the claim, emphasized that Hill makes a career of facing larger opponents.
“Tyreek Hill was not cool with it,” Gdanski said Thursday. This is when his demeanor switched, he continued.
Before they could begin their next drill, Hill’s puppy, Chapo, ran out and disrupted them. During their third drill, Hill delivered what Gdanski described as a “warning shove,” and told her, “Yeah. You felt that right? You felt that.”
It was during their fourth drill, Gdanski said, that Hill charged at her, causing an injury that left her in excruciating pain, and he had to carry her piggyback into the house. Hall would later be diagnosed with a fractured tibial plateau that required surgery; she now has surgical screws in her knee. She did not receive medical care until after she left Hill’s home three days later.
Horwitz posed the question of why Hall would stay and continue playing if she felt scared and uncomfortable by Hill’s change in demeanor.
He said Hall never said anything when she was on the ground and argued that even though she now claims Hill assaulted her, she let him carry her back into the house, stayed for the weekend and had sex with him twice. She also texted her sister and friends that she had hurt herself, never describing the incident as an “attack,” Horwitz said during his opening statement.
In depositions, Gdanski said, the witnesses at Hill’s home that day all gave different versions of events, with Hill saying he never even came into contact with Hall and that she stepped on his dog and fell.
Gdanski referenced Hill’s mother, who said Hall tripped over Chapo while trying to catch a ball. His sister claims she wasn’t outside during the training drills. His trainer, Nathan Nunnery, said he could not pin down what happened.
Hill’s defense team claims that it will bring in an expert witness later in the trial who will testify that Hall’s injury was caused by her own body weight and deformities in her legs.
Hall’s attorneys said they have their own expert witnesses who will disprove that. Days after her injury, Hall sent Hill an X-ray image and put the blame on him.
“I think you were too strong pushing against me,” she wrote to him. The messages also showed that she was upset because he did not check up on her after the injury.
“Not a chance,” he replied to her accusations. “I just moved too fast around you.”
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