In his head-on mug shot from a November arrest in Miami for allegedly leaving the scene of an accident, Lawrence Taylor has a hint of a smile. In his profile shot, his head is up, his chin is thrust forward. The photo fairly screams, Don’t you know who I am?
The word “know” was prominent at his arraignment hearing following the Hall of Fame football player’s most recent arrest — that on charges of solicitation and rape of an underage girl.
When Taylor’s demonstrative lawyer — think Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad — protested the judge’s granting the victim, identified only as “CF,” an order of protection against Taylor, the mouthpiece claimed, “The complainant is a stranger to my client. … Mr. Taylor doesn’t know this person’s name, doesn’t know anything … about her … He doesn’t know who CF is.”
Well, if the police are to be believed, Taylor does know CF — in the biblical sense. But in another sense, Taylor’s legal beagle is correct: His client didn’t know CF — not as a person, not as a fellow human being — and didn’t have the slightest interest in doing so.
Taylor didn’t care to find out that CF was a 16-year-old runaway forced into tricking by a manslaughter parolee who both drugged her and beat her before sending her to pleasure the 51-year-old former linebacker. If police are correct, Taylor didn’t care that this girl showed up at his room at the Suffern, N.Y., Holiday Inn with a black eye and other facial injuries.
No, Taylor wasn’t that interested in the girl who entered his room. Why would he be? By his own admission, he’s been with prostitutes before — sometimes six a day. Ah, but that was back in his drug-using, reporter-choking, deadbeat-dad days. Before his “rebirth,” a rebirth that led to his becoming a spokesman for NutriSystem Inc. and being featured on Dancing with the Stars.
Not only was his image rehabilitated, he was, too — or so went the spin. Last week, referring to his client’s troubled past, agent Mark Lepselter said, “That was the old Lawrence Taylor. This is the new Lawrence Taylor.”
Well, if the defense story is to be believed, the new Lawrence Taylor doesn’t have intercourse with prostitutes — he just pays them $300 to be there while he does the uh … trick … himself. Whatever the truth, Taylor already has cost himself the NutriSystem gig, and I doubt he’ll be featured on a family-hour TV show anytime soon.
Then there’s the little matter that a conviction could cost Taylor four years of his freedom. “I’ve never seen him this distraught,” Lepselter said, and I believe him.
Taylor’s head-on booking mug from this latest arrest is nothing like the ones taken in Florida. There is no smile, no chin thrust, no sense of the “don’t you know who I am?” attitude.
Perhaps that’s because he fears that with this latest fall, we do, indeed.
Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.
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