UFC welterweight contender Geoff Neal was arrested on misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated and unlawfully carrying a weapon on Thanksgiving morning in Collin County, Texas.
MMA Junkie's Simon Samano was the first to report the news of Neal's arrest and provided documents from the Collin County Sheriff's Office that show the 31-year old Austin, Texas native's booking information. Neal was released later that evening on a $2,000 bond, but no other information is currently available on the incident that led to his arrest.
His attorney, Brandon Barnett, gave ESPN's Marc Raimondi the following statement about his confidence that Neal is innocent of both charges.
"If it turns out he was not legally intoxicated -- which we expect the blood test will show -- there won't be a gun charge, either," Barnett said. "I think it's somewhat premature to report on this at this point. Doing what I do for a living, there's a lot of occasions where you see an arrest, and then based on the evidence that comes back there's never even a case file."
Neal is scheduled to face Santiago Ponzinibbio on the main card of next Saturday night's UFC 269 event in Las Vegas, Nevada and as of right now, the promotion also gave ESPN the following statement saying the bout is still expected to go on as planned. Neal is on a two-fight losing streak currently and is trying to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to Neil Magny back at UFC Vegas 26.
"UFC is aware of the recent situation involving Geoff Neal. The organization has been in communication with him and is in the process of gathering more details. Neal's bout at UFC 269 on December 11th remains as scheduled."
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