Former Oklahoma State and Nebraska Cornhuskers wrestler Albert “AJ” Ferrari was taken into custody last weekend following a high-speed police pursuit through western Nebraska.
According to sources, the arrest brought renewed attention to a separate and graver set of accusations: that he physically attacked his pregnant partner in Lincoln earlier this year.
According to the Nebraska State Patrol, a trooper clocked Ferrari’s Chevrolet Corvette traveling over 110 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour zone on Interstate 80 near North Platte. When the trooper moved to pull him over, Ferrari refused and fled westbound. He eventually abandoned the car and ran on foot.
Authorities found identifying information inside the vehicle and located Ferrari the following morning. He was booked into Lincoln County Jail on charges of flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, and obstruction.
But it was a separate account, shared in a live video broadcast by a young woman named Shaylee, that generated significant attention online.
Shaylee, who recently turned 20, says Ferrari assaulted her on May 8th while she was eight weeks pregnant with his child. The two had confirmed the pregnancy together on April 12th at an urgent care clinic through a blood test, a result she says Ferrari witnessed firsthand.
She says she even recorded herself telling him the news in what she had imagined would be a happy moment.
By the time of the alleged assault, Shaylee says her body had already been severely weakened by pregnancy-related illness. She described spending roughly two weeks bedridden, unable to eat more than a cracker or small bite on some days, and losing approximately 10 pounds during that stretch.
“I was probably at my weakest at this point,” she said during the broadcast. “I had probably lost maybe like 10 pounds around this time because I was eight weeks pregnant when this happened.”
According to Shaylee, Ferrari dragged her off the bed by her legs, with her head hitting the ground first. He then allegedly sat on her stomach, a detail she emphasized with particular alarm given that she was pregnant at the time, before placing both hands around her neck and strangling her until she lost consciousness.
“He had both his hands around my neck and I don’t know how long he did it for, because I just remember sitting up afterwards,” she said. “It felt like I was breathing out of a straw. I remember thinking, wondering if my… I was like, I hope my breathing goes back to normal. It was really hard to breathe afterwards.”
She said she has no memory of him stopping. Her next conscious moment was sitting up, gasping for air, while Ferrari stood above her yelling.
The question of whether he knew she was pregnant at the time drew a sharp response.
“Yeah, like a thousand percent,” she said. “So this is like another part that makes it so messed up.”
After the incident, Shaylee was taken to a hospital where forensic nurses photographed her injuries, including bruising on her neck. A police officer accompanied her through much of the process.
The weeks that followed were medically difficult. She says she visited the emergency room roughly four times in one month and was eventually admitted to the hospital for three days after her immune system gave way under the combined weight of pregnancy, inadequate nutrition, and the stress of what had happened.
“I couldn’t get off this infection I had because my immune system was getting so weak,” she said. “One, because the pregnancy; two, because I wasn’t really eating and losing weight; and three, all the stress.”
Recovering largely at home, Shaylee described the emotional weight of watching Ferrari appear to move on with his life, including running a wrestling camp. She also recounted hearing, secondhand, that he had told people she had fabricated the pregnancy entirely.
“He said I drew a line on the test. I didn’t even take that kind of test. I got a blood test at urgent care,” she said. “That’s just not true.”
On the question of the baby, she was direct.
“I would never end my baby,” she said. “That’s just not something I would do, and I wouldn’t give it up either. It’s my baby. It may be his, but it’s never gonna be his. It’s mine.”
She acknowledged being young, noting she had just turned 20, but said the decision was never in doubt. Her reasons for speaking publicly, she explained, are partly protective. She wants to ensure Ferrari cannot pursue custody of the child down the road, and she wants other women to know what she says she experienced.
“I want my story to get out there so that another girl doesn’t get tricked the way I got tricked,” she said.
Ferrari’s history includes a prior investigation at Oklahoma State, where he left the wrestling program in 2022 following a sexual assault inquiry by the Stillwater Police. The Payne County District Court later dismissed those charges.
