A jury found former Kansas City and Miami receiver Tyreek Hill liable on Tuesday night for two counts of battery in his civil trial. The same Miami jury found him not liable on another five counts of battery, one count of assault, one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress, and one count of continuing domestic violence.
The jury awarded Hill's estranged wife, Lakeeta Vaccaro, $500,000 in compensatory damages, but did not award any punitive damages.
The trial came about as part of the couple's ongoing divorce in which Vaccaro said Hill physically and verbally abused her during their marriage, including once trying to punch her in the stomach while she was pregnant with their daughter. Hill told jurors that that he did verbally abuse his wife, whom he in turn accused of stealing his money, but the NFL wideout said he did not physically hurt her.
(The complaint that mentioned the physical abuse was at first made confidential by a court clerk due to a request from Hill's legal team. After a group of media outlets, including Defector Media, intervened, the document became public.)
Jurors were presented with seven counts of battery—each connected to a different date on which Vaccaro said Hill hurt her—as well as one count of assault, also connected to a specific date. In their mixed verdict, jurors seemed to say that, for certain dates, they felt Vaccaro had presented enough evidence and, for others, she had not.
Those two dates were from early January 2024 and April 7, 2025. Vaccaro told the court that on the January date she and Hill got in a fight about a proposed post-nuptial agreement that escalated to Hill knocking her down, yelling at her, ripping off her necklace, and putting his hands around her neck. While on the stand, lawyers presented a photo that showed a red mark near her collarbone. Vaccaro said she took the picture not longer after that battery, when she saw the red mark near her neck.
On April 7, 2025, Vaccaro's mother called Sunny Isles Beach police, sounding scared while the couple fought. Jurors heard pieces of that 911 call. They also heard audio from a nanny cam that was recording at the time. Reporters were not allowed to broadcast the nanny cam footage, however Vaccaro's attorney, Paul Schwiep read aloud from it during closing statements. (You can also read a full transcript of it here.)
"We’re gonna see when the crew come over here. We’re gonna see what can happen" Schwiep told the jury, quoting from the transcript, before asking the jury, "Is there a veiled threatened in that?"
Evan Marks, another attorney for Vaccaro, told Defector afterward: "Tyreek Hill was found by a jury to have committed battery against his wife, and the jury awarded compensatory damages. Domestic violence is unacceptable. We are satisfied with the jury’s verdict."
Hill's legal team said they too considered the verdict a victory, focusing on the eight counts on which the jury found him not liable, as well as Vaccaro getting much less than her lawyers had requested during closing statements ($8 million, one for each count of battery or assault). Attorney Michael Gottlieb told Defector: "From our client's perspective, this was a defense verdict. They alleged much more egregious conduct and, based on the jury's compensation award, this was a defense verdict."
Ultimately, Vaccaro's legal team asked jurors to believe her testimony that Hill physically attacked her multiple times and that she did not speak up about it to more people because she saw how starstruck they were by Hill's fame. They pointed to supporting testimony from her family members, including her mother and sister, as well as the 911 and nanny cam audio.
Hill's lawyers, meanwhile, asked jurors to rely on the testimony of multiple police officers who responded to calls for service involving the couple in three different Florida locations—Orlando, Southwest Ranches, and Sunny Isles Beach. All testified that they did not make an arrest each time they were called. And Hill's legal team focused on how long Vaccaro stayed with him, even after she said the physical abuse began. As Gottlieb told jurors in his closing statements: "After all this abuse, she went to the Pro Bowl with him."
At one point during the trial, while being questioned by one of his attorneys, Christi Bright, Hill was asked if he believed he had been a good husband.
His own answer: "Man, I don't. I don't." So Bright asked him to explain in what areas he wasn't a good husband, and Hill replied, "I don't. I really don't. I just think that, well, I'm going into football terms, but I just think that after watching the film, there were a lot of areas I can improve in.”
While playing for Oklahoma State, Hill pleaded guilty to domestic abuse of his pregnant girlfriend. (The program dismissed him, and he finished his college career at Division II West Alabama). In 2019, then in the pros with Kansas City, Hill was part of investigations done by law enforcement and child welfare agents into possible child abuse. No criminal charges were brought in the 2019 case. New details emerged about it due to the recent civil trial, however the judge did not allow anything from 2016 or 2019 to go before the jury.
There's no way to definitively know if the trial had any impact on the 32-year-old's attempts to re-sign with a new NFL team. Hill's NFL career already seemed to be winding down last year after a brutal knee injury. The Fins released him five months later, and no team signed him to their 2026 squad.
That did seem likely to change as the new NFL season began and several teams, including Hill's former squad in Kansas City, lost receivers to injuries. With the trial looming, Hill's agent had said he expected his client to sign with a team within a few days. Then the trial began. A week later, Kansas City announced that it had signed a new wide receiver who had previously won a Super Bowl with them: Justin Watson.
