AJ Ferrari Arrested Again: Ex-Nebraska Wrestler Caught After Manhunt on Domestic Assault Charges

What Happened AJ Ferrari, the former Nebraska wrestling standout and one-time NCAA champion, is back in custody after a weeks-long manhunt that ended with police tracking him down hiding in a garage near Bennington, Nebraska. Douglas County Sheriff's investigators had the residence under surveillance and watched Ferrari crawl out of the garage to join a woman getting into a pickup truck before deputies moved in for a felony traffic arrest.

The arrest closes out a Lancaster County warrant that had been active since a May incident in Lincoln. According to the arrest affidavit, police were called to a north Lincoln apartment on May 8 after a woman said she and Ferrari got into a fight and he wouldn't let her leave. She told officers he dragged her off a bed by her feet and strangled her while she was eight months pregnant, and that she fought back out of fear for her baby's safety. She eventually broke free, called her mother, and was taken to a hospital.

The Charges Ferrari now faces strangulation or suffocation of a pregnant woman, third-degree domestic assault of a pregnant woman, and first-degree false imprisonment. He was booked into the Douglas County Department of Corrections following the arrest.

Why This Isn't Ferrari's First Brush With Trouble Ferrari's wrestling career has been shadowed by legal and disciplinary issues for years. He was previously dismissed from Oklahoma State's wrestling program in 2022 amid a sexual assault investigation, a case that drew national attention given his standing as a returning NCAA champion at the time. He later transferred and continued competing, but his off-mat conduct has repeatedly overshadowed his on-mat success, including a 2021 NCAA title at 197 pounds.

This latest case adds a much more serious allegation to that pattern — one involving alleged violence against a pregnant partner, which elevates both the legal stakes and the public scrutiny on how college athletics programs and governing bodies respond to repeat offenders.

What Happens Next Ferrari will move through the Nebraska court system on the Lancaster County charges. Given the felony nature of strangulation and false imprisonment charges, he could be facing significant prison time if convicted. It's unclear whether any wrestling organization or sponsor connections remain that could be affected by the case, but given his past dismissal from Oklahoma State, any competitive future looks increasingly unlikely.

The Bigger Picture Cases like this tend to reignite conversations about how athletic programs vet and retain athletes with prior red flags. Ferrari was already a cautionary tale in wrestling circles before this arrest; now his name is likely to become a reference point in broader discussions about accountability in college and Olympic-level sports.