Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and two others were charged with murder in 2000 after a fight in a popular Atlanta bar district left two men dead on the street. The murder charges against Lewis were dropped after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice and testified against his friends; they were later acquitted. Lewis announced his retirement before helping the Ravens win the Super Bowl in February 2013.




Bruno Souza, a former goalie for the Brazilian soccer club Flamengo, was arrested in August 2010 in the slaying of his ex-girlfriend, Eliza Samudio, who had disappeared two months before. Souza, his lover and his wife were among nine people charged with torturing and murdering Samudio, who had been trying to prove he had fathered her son. He is serving a 4½-year sentence for assaulting and kidnapping Samudio, and now faces a murder trial.



Although O.J. Simpson was found not guilty, the 1995 trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman has kept him a household name. O.J. Simpson played for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. In October 2008 Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison on multiple counts, including armed robbery and kidnapping, in connection with a robbery at a Las Vegas hotel in 2007.




Retired basketball star Jayson Williams was sentenced in 2010 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated assault in the fatal shooting of his limo driver in 2002. Costas "Gus" Christofi, 55, had been hired to shuttle Williams and friends around for the night and was shot in he bedroom of Williams' New Jersey estate. Williams had played nine seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Nets.