The Lady-Punching Jets Fan Has a Violent Past

As a coda to Monday’s  story about a Jets fan caught on camera punching a female Patriots fan full in the face, we’ll just quickly point out that  the intrepid New York Daily News has identified the Jets superfan, and it turns out he has a violent past, to put it mildly. You just knew this story wouldn’t die, and that the details would be sordid. And well, it hasn’t, and they are.

That’s because when Kurt Paschke, 38, was 17, he received a three-year sentence for stabbing another 17-year-old to death during a fight behind a pizza parlor on Long Island, the Daily News reports. Paschke’s defense team said he was “drawn into” the confrontation, and he said at his sentencing that he “never sought the confrontation, but when it came, I did what I had to do.”

Without judging the merit of that defense, we’ll just add that it sounds a bit awkward several decades later because it parallels the argument his friends are making to the press for why he punched Jaclyn Nugent outside Met Life Stadium after the Patriots loss Sunday. (“He would never go after anybody if there wasn’t a reason,” his friend tells the Daily News. “It looks like the girl went after him, not the other way around. He would never hit a lady.” Except, of course, for the time he did, and it was posted to Deadspin.)

New Jersey State Police said they’re investigating the incident and may file charges Tuesday. And of course, it’s true that Nugent doesn’t exactly look passive in this confrontation, and we imagine the allegations that she and her friends jumped the Jets fans will be investigated, too. As we said, this viral bit of postgame bitterness has gotten a bit gross for all involved. Yikes, all around. Just yikes.