China sentenced Wendell Brown, a former Ball State linebacker, to four years in prison on Thursday over an incident originating from a 2016 bar fight in the city of Chongquing, according to NPR. 

The 30-year-old Detroit native allegedly punched a Chinese man after the man, who was drunk, threw a glass bottle at him at a bar,” according to Michigan Public Radio.

According to witnesses, Brown, who was in China to help coach the Chongqing Dockers of the American Football League of China, was defending himself after he was bothered by a group of people who were mad that he did not want to party with them, American Football International reports.

The verdict was announced nearly a year after Brown was tried in July 2017, per NPR.

“I still can’t believe this,” his mother Antoinette Brown told Yahoo Sports.

It’s unclear if Brown will serve the four years since he’s been in jail for two years already, according to Yahoo Sports.