Josh Brent, Jerry Brown Dallas Cowboys crash: Brent released from jail on $500,000 bond

Associated Press, wire reports

Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Josh Brent was released from jail on $500,000 bond Sunday -- around the time his team pulled off an emotional, last-second win -- after his arrest in the fiery weekend car crash that killed his teammate Jerry Brown.

Brown was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Brent when the accident happened about 2:20 a.m. Saturday in Irving, a suburb of Dallas, said John Argumaniz, an Irving police spokesman. Argumaniz said the vehicle hit a curb and flipped at least once.

Brown, 25, who was also Brent’s college teammate at Illinois, was unresponsive at the scene and pronounced dead at a hospital, Argumaniz said. After a field sobriety test, officers arrested Brent on a charge of driving while intoxicated. The charge was upgraded to intoxication manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison, after Brown died.

The crash occurred hours before the Cowboys flew to Cincinnati, where they will play the Bengals on Sunday.

When officers arrived at the scene, on a state highway service road, Brent was dragging Brown from the vehicle, a Mercedes, which was on fire. Argumaniz said investigators were “certain they were traveling well above the posted speed limit” of 45 miles per hour.

Brent, 24, received treatment for minor scrapes and was being held without bail.

In February 2009, Brent was arrested near the Illinois campus on charges of driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license and speeding, court records show. In June 2009, he pleaded guilty to D.U.I. and was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 2 years of probation, 200 hours of community service and a fine of about $2,000.

Saturday’s accident happened one week after Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and himself.