Former college quarterback arrested for assault after Jacksonville Beach man suffers severe head trauma

A former college quarterback and the son of ex-Herbalife CEO John Agwunobi is facing a felony battery charge for allegedly leaving a Jacksonville Beach man with severe head injuries for rejecting his advances at a bar, The Citizen has learned.

Seth Agwunobi, 22, a former Temple University football player, is accused of throwing Connolly Byrnes into a barricade outside Mango’s Beach Bar on August 25.

“He had just turned 21 a couple of days before and decided to go out,” his mother, Lizzie Byrnes, told The Citizen.

Byrnes, a graduate of St. Paul’s Catholic School, was initially unable to breathe on his own and required surgery to remove a portion of his skull, according to a GoFundMe post.

“Connolly will need reconstructive surgery to place his skull bone back,” the GoFundMe page reads. ”We hope we can continue to help support Connolly as he recovers and works towards going back to his normal life. It’s a long road ahead but we know Connolly is strong and has all of us supporting him.”

The GoFundMe campaign has raised $34,185 as of Oct. 2. Byrnes, who suffered a fractured skull and a brain bleed, has regained some speech capacity and can now breathe without a ventilator.

His mother said he’s in a rehabilitation facility where he’ll remain for the next several months until he has surgery to reattach part of his skull. They still don’t know if he’ll make a full recovery, she added. “We can’t predict the lasting outcome,” she told The Citizen.

An incident report from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department stated that an off-duty officer was working security at the popular nightspot when a witness alerted him to the assault.

The officer found Byrnes unconscious on the sidewalk outside the bar, and several witnesses identified Agwunobi as the assailant.

“After multiple attempts of asking Agwunobi what happened, he continued to ramble about things unrelated to the incident despite me trying to keep him on track,” the off-duty officer wrote in the report.

Arriving police interviewed several witnesses who stated that Agwunobi had been aggressively pursuing Byrnes, who politely declined his advances.

One man told investigators that Agwunobi approached Byrnes and began joking about a TikTok meme in a friendly manner.

“Agwunobi then stated he was going to kiss Byrnes and appeared to lean in as if he was going to kiss him,” the account reads. “[The witness]stated Byrnes turned his head away and stated he did not care if [Agwunobi] was gay, but he was not.”

Pinned against a window, Byrnes tried to create some space between them and “attempts to push him off him,” according to the witness.

Agwunobi then allegedly picked Byrnes up and threw him into a barricade, causing him to hit his head on the pavement.

Another witness told police that Agwunobi was “‘low-key’ sexually assaulting” Byrnes before the attack, and that “Byrnes didn’t seem to know what to do.”

Agwunobi told officers that night that Byrnes had called him “derogatory” names and “balled up his fist” at one point. He said he believed he was about to be struck.

Agwunobi,  whose bar tab showed 14 drinks,  appeared intoxicated and told the officer that Byrnes had “committed a hate crime against him,” according to the report.

He also told the officer that he had been called a “f—— f—–” at some point during the night, possibly while he was at another bar.

The off-duty officer wrote in his report that he viewed video footage from the incident.

“I was able to watch CCTV from the corner of Mango’s,” he wrote. “The video is consistent with the witness statements and shows the defendant place his hands on the victim unprovoked.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Agwunobi works in national sales for the PGA Tour, but a spokesperson said he is no longer employed there.

His father John Agwunobi is a renowned pediatrician who served as former Florida Secretary of Health under Gov. Jeb Bush and assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Seth Agwunobi was initially charged with felony battery and disorderly intoxication, though the latter count was later dropped, court records show. He is currently free on bond.

He has pleaded not guilty through his attorney, Jessica Goldsborough, who didn’t return a request for comment.

The Jacksonville Beach community has been roiled by the incident and has sought to support the Byrnes family.

”We are praying for him. Many of our families have contributed to his GoFundMe,” St. Paul’s principal Krissy Thompson told The Citizen. “I know he’s improving but I also understand there’s a long road to recovery. He is a tremendous young man who needs lots of prayers.”

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