Suspended Georgia football offensive lineman arrested after crash at apartment complex

A Georgia football player who was suspended this week after crashing the front of his vehicle into an apartment complex in Watkinsville was arrested in Oconee County on Friday.

Offensive lineman Marques Easley was charged with three counts of reckless conduct and one count of reckless driving, all misdemeanors.

He was booked into the Oconee County jail at 4:35 p.m. Friday and released at 5:04 p.m., according to an online booking report.

Investigating state troopers said evidence suggested that Easley had been “laying drag,” according to a crash report obtained by the Athens Banner-Herald Friday.

Easley was driving a 2021 Dodge Challenger west on Redwood Lane Monday at about 10:07 p.m. in a “reckless disregard,” when he lost control and began to rotate clockwise and ran off the road before striking a power distribution box with the front , according to a crash report from Georgia Department of Public Safety.

He then struck the passenger side of a parked 2013 Hyundai Elantra with his driver’s side. That caused the Elantra to hit a parked 2018 Mercedes-Benz CLA. The parked cars were outside the Athens Ridge Apartment Complex.

After Easley’s Dodge collided with the Elantra, the Dodge struck the front of an apartment, “with its front coming to a final rest,” the crash report said.

Easley, a redshirt freshman from Peoria, Ill., said he lost control of the car and was traveling at 25 to 30 miles per hour before the crash, the crash report said.

“The investigating troopers found this to be an inaccurate account of (what) happened due to the amount of damage from the crash and the fact that (the Dodge Challenger) had tire marks going back an estimated 200 feet,” the report said.

Easley was taken to Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital, but no details were listed on the extent of his injuries. Another football player and two members of the Georgia women’s track and field team were listed as passengers.

Easley’s arrest is the 32nd known incident by a Georgia football player or a member of the support staff that has been charged with speeding, reckless driving or racing going back to the Jan. 15, 2023 death of football player Devin Willock and support staffer Chandler LeCroy.

They were killed in a high-speed crash in which police say LeCroy and former Georgia defensive lineman Jalen Carter were racing at more than 100 miles per hour. LeCroy was found to have had a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit.