NFL star Earl Thomas’ wife arrested, Austin police say she held him at gunpoint over affair

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin police arrested the wife of NFL star and former Longhorn Earl Thomas after they say she held him at gunpoint when she went to confront him about an affair.

Police were sent to the 600 block of Brushy Street in east Austin around 3:41 a.m. on April 13 for a call of a disturbance. When officers arrived at the scene, they found a woman with a knife chasing a shirtless man who was holding a gun, around a car. They later identified the woman as Nina Thomas, 30, and the man as Earl Thomas. Thomas is the Baltimore Ravens’ star defensive back for the Baltimore Ravens and played for the University of Texas Longhorns from 2007 to 2009.

Police ordered both to drop their weapons and get on the ground, which they did, according to an arrest affidavit. Another shirtless man and two other women were yelling at the Thomases from inside the apartment and there were also two additional women found inside the apartment, the affidavit said.

Earl Thomas told police he was staying at the apartment with a relative, that man’s girlfriend and her friend, with whom Earl said he was in a romantic relationship with, as he “worked on his relationship with his wife,” according to the affidavit. He said the day before he was at his home with Nina and the two got into an argument, so he called the other man to come pick him up and the two went to the apartment.

Police then spoke with Nina. She said she and her husband fought and she got suspicious after he left and checked his Snapchat account. That’s when she told police she saw him with another woman. She told police she grabbed Earl’s gun and was going to go the apartment to scare him.

The other man and woman said they went to bed around 1 a.m. but were awoken to the sound of the bedroom door being kicked in and three women entering. The man’s girlfriend told police she believed one of them was the mother of her boyfriend’s child, and that she tried to attack her before the man wrapped her in his arms and walked her out of the room. Meanwhile, the other two women who burst in had left for the other room where Earl Thomas was, police said.

The other man’s girlfriend said she heard yelling coming from the room her friend and Earl were in. According to the affidavit, she said she heard Earl say, “put down the gun,” and a woman’s voice say, “the safety is off, if you come any closer, I’ll shoot you.”

Multiple witnesses said they say Earl and Nina Thomas arguing over the gun, eventually wrestling over it. They told police Earl was able to get the gun from Nina Thomas, who then armed herself with a knife. The two ended up outside, where police found them.

According to the affidavit, Nina admitted she put the gun to Earl’s head with the intent to scare him. She said she removed the magazine, thinking the gun would not fire and admitted to disengaging the safety. Police say when they recovered the gun at the scene there was one bullet in the chamber.

One of the women with Nina told police she filmed the incident on her phone. Police reviewed the footage and said it showed Nina holding the gun to Earl’s head. They also said the video clearly showed Nina’s finger on the trigger and the safety disengaged.

The woman who filmed the video said she knew Nina was bringing a gun to scare Earl but said she thought it wouldn’t fire because the magazine was removed.

Nina was arrested and charged with burglary of a residence with intent to commit aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She has since bonded out of Travis County Jail.