Paul Bissonnette was hospitalized after being attacked outside a Scottsdale restaurant in November 2024, an incident that dominated hockey news for weeks and produced surveillance footage that was played across North America. The legal conclusion arrived without anyone much noticing.
The outcomes were compiled by a Reddit user who went through the Maricopa County court records directly after finding almost no reporting on how the cases ended, and who published the sentencing orders for each defendant.
Six men were originally arrested. Four of them faced felony aggravated assault charges, and according to those records, all four pleaded guilty and have now been sentenced. Three received two years of probation and the fourth received two and a half. None was sentenced to jail or prison.
All four were also ordered to pay $8,000 in restitution to Bissonnette. The orders specify joint and several liability, meaning it appears to be a shared $8,000 obligation rather than $8,000 from each man.
Their probation conditions included alcohol restrictions, no contact with Bissonnette, staying away from the restaurant, and either anger management or substance abuse counseling depending on the defendant.
What happened to Paul Bissonnette outside the restaurant?
The incident took place on November 24, 2024, at a Houston’s restaurant near Scottsdale Road and McDonald Drive, at around 7:30 in the evening. Six men were arguing with the restaurant’s management, and Bissonnette, a regular there, stepped in to try to calm the situation.
“If you continue to harass and assault the staff, we’re gonna have problems,” he recalled telling them.
Scottsdale police said the situation escalated into the men assaulting him both inside and outside the restaurant. Surveillance footage later released by police showed him being punched, kicked and thrown to the ground in the parking lot, at one point trying to run before being caught and pushed down. He was taken to hospital for treatment.
READ MORE: Paul Bissonnette’s worst chirp made the referee laugh
Bissonnette said afterwards that he believed seven men were involved, though police maintained there were six. One of those arrested also faced a forgery charge over a fraudulent military identification card.
The two men who faced only misdemeanor charges don’t appear in the records the Reddit user was able to locate, so their outcomes remain unclear.
Read more:
