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Hulk Hogan’s son to be freed early

The son of celebrity wrestler Hulk Hogan will be released from jail Oct. 21, five months into the eight-month sentence he received for his role in a car wreck that caused life-altering injuries to a Marine.

Nick Hogan, 18, whose real name is Nicholas Bollea, will be released early for good behavior from Pinellas County Jail in Largo, Fla., his lawyers told several media sources.

Hogan was the driver in a high-speed wreck in Clearwater, Fla., that critically injured Lance Cpl. John Graziano, 23, on Aug. 26, 2007. Graziano suffered a severe head wound and nearly died that night as his intestines stopped working and his kidneys briefly shut down.

Graziano has been incapacitated since and lives at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, where he receives full-time medical care.

His fiancée, Ashley Berry, 21, said his condition has improved some since he underwent reconstructive cranioplasty July 30.

The procedure involved doctors using an acrylic bone to replace a portion of his skull that was removed to relieve pressure on his brain.

“Surgery went awesome and we all expected him to be on a respirator when he got out of surgery and he wasn’t,” Berry said. “He was still breathing on his own, and doctors said he did awesome.”

Graziano also is responding to some stimuli, holding hands and appearing to try to talk, Berry said.

According to police reports, Hogan was traveling more than 60 mph on a city street when his father’s 1998 Toyota Supra struck a curb, spun 180 degrees and slammed into a tree.

After a two-month investigation, Clearwater police charged Hogan in November 2007 with reckless driving involving bodily injury. He was sentenced in May after pleading no contest.

Many media reports expressed surprise at the early release, but Hogan’s lawyer, Morris “Sandy” Weinberg Jr., told MTV that the Hogan family had looked forward to Oct. 21 for months.

“That’s not early, that’s when he would normally be released, once you figure in good time and all that,” Weinberg said.

The accident occurred five months after Graziano returned to his hometown of Dunedin, Fla., from a deployment to Iraq with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. Graziano served as a motor transport operator with the unit, driving 7-ton trucks for a battalion that lost 18 Marines and corpsmen during the bloody 2006 Battle of Ramadi, family and friends said.

Graziano met Hogan at a Tampa car show when he was in high school, Berry said. Hogan asked him to join the crew of his precision driving team after he returned from the war, giving the Marine a job as he transitioned back to civilian life and giving Hogan someone he could trust.

Graziano’s parents, who are estranged, sued the Hogans in March, seeking financial support for Graziano’s medical care. In response, Hogan lawyers blamed Graziano for his injuries, saying that if he had been wearing a seat belt, “he would not have sustained the injuries alleged” by the Graziano family. The suit is still pending, and neither the Hogans nor Graziano’s parents could be reached for comment.

Berry said she doesn’t think another three more months in jail would have changed anything for Hogan.

“No matter the time there, it will never [be] equal to … Nick’s stupid actions,” she said. “If I never saw him again, my life would be great. At this point, my John is getting better with time, and I don’t care about Nick. I want him as far away from John as possible.”