A big sports related story: Football Pro Football Hall Of Famer Lawrence Taylor was arrested Thursday on charges of rape and patronizing a prostitute — and he has now reportedly been fired by Nutrisystem. It’s a harrowing story. Watch the details in this CNN report below.
Now he has lost his Nutrisystem deal, the New York Daily News reports.
Nutrisystem, the online weight loss company, shed 230-pound ex-Giants great Lawrence Taylor Friday, a day after his arrest on charges of raping a teenaged Bronx runaway.
“Based on the severity of these allegations, Nutrisystem has made the decision to sever our relationship with Mr. Taylor effective immediately,” a spokesman for the the Horsham, Pa.-based company told TMZ.
The company said it was “shocked and saddened” by the allegations.
Nutrisystem quickly replaced Taylor’s image on their website with San Diego Padres star Matt Stairs.
In the latest off-field fiasco for the Hall of Fame linebacker, Taylor, 51, was charged Thursday with raping a 16-year-old girl in a Rockland County hotel room.
Town of Ramapo police said the teen victim was a runaway forceably brought to a hotel where Taylor was staying in Suffern, about 40 miles north of the city.
A used condom reportedly was found in the room.
Taylor, charged with third-degree rape, which involves sexual intercourse with a minor, faces a maximum sentence of four years behind bars if convicted.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.