Court Date Set For Nate Diaz Assault Case

Diaz will have his first date in court on June 28th after choking a man unconscious in a New Orleans street fight back in April.

Nate Diaz’s legal odyssey is set to kick off after the former UFC fighter choked a Logan Paul impersonator out during a street fight in April.

A preliminary court hearing date has been set for June 27th in New Orleans, Louisana. Diaz is facing a second-degree battery charge, which a felony that comes with up to eight years in prison and/or $2000 in fines. While it’s extremely doubtful that the Stockton fighter will end up spending any significant time in jail, a guilty verdict could certainly make an expected civil suit much more expensive.

Nate Diaz and his teammates got into an altercation with former football player and YouTube celebrity boxer Chase DeMoor during a Misfits Boxing event featuring Diaz’s teammate Chris Avila. After a verbal altercation, video footage showed Diaz throwing a bottle at DeMoor and his team before being escorted out of the event.

Later that night, DeMoor and Diaz came into contact again outside a New Orleans bar. While details are sketchy as to who started what and why, videos posted to social media show a full fledged street brawl in effect, with members of Diaz’s team and DeMoor throwing punches until police arrived to break things up.

Diaz can be seen backing away from the incident, but Logan Paul lookalike Rodney Petersen made the bad decision to approach him and back him up against a wall. Even with his hands up in an unthreatening manner, Peterson looked like enough of a threat for Nate to put him in a choke hold, dropping the Influencer to the pavement unconscious.

Diaz’s legal representative Zach Rosenfield called the move self-defense in a statement released to the press.

“Nate’s attorney looks forward to presenting all of the facts about this incident to the District Attorney,” Rosenfield wrote. “Which clearly demonstrate that a trained fighter named Rodney Petersen aggressively pursued Nate with the intention of engaging him and once doing so, Nate acted entirely in self-defense. No further comment will be made at this time.”

Petersen is an experience Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner and has participated in YouTuber boxing events in the past. It’s unclear whether he was part of DeMoor’s group that night.

Nate Diaz is set to fight Jake Paul on August 5th in Dallas, Texas. The incident will have no impact on Diaz’s ability to get licensed or compete, other than to serve as a distraction as he heads into the biggest payday of his fighting career.