The brother of Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic was arrested for allegedly choking and pushing a woman.
Strahinja Jokic, 37, had been drinking Thursday night and was with a woman in a Denver apartment, according to a police probable cause statement obtained by The Denver Post. The woman tried to leave the apartment, but Jokic shoved her and wouldn’t let her leave, the document said.
The woman then went to the balcony to yell for help, but Jokic grabbed her and choked her, according to police. He told the woman that he would choke her “until she fell asleep,” the document said.
The woman tried to call 911, but Jokic took away her phone. She was able to use a computer to send a message to someone she knew — that person then called police, the probable cause statement said.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office accepted a charge of second-degree assault, a felony, and two misdemeanors, false imprisonment and obstruction of phone service, against Jokic, spokeswoman Carolyn Tyler said.
Court records show Jokic pleaded guilty in February 2020 to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of phone service and felony trespassing. The other charges against him were dismissed.
Denver District Court Judge Shelley Gilman gave Jokic a deferred sentence, meaning he will not face any penalties as long as follows the rules of unsupervised probation and he doesn’t commit another crime before Feb. 3, 2022. If he completes the term successfully, the criminal case will be dismissed.
Strahinja and Nemanja Jokic — the older brothers of the Nuggets star center — have been known to attend many of their younger brother’s games. Strahinja Jokic once became so angry at a referee that he had to be restrained by a security guard.
Update: This story was updated on June 15, 2021, to include information about Jokic’s guilty plea.
