Trouble at the Nightclub

Author:
SI Staff
Publish date:
Jul 13, 2012

Trouble at the Nightclub

Adrian Peterson

Adrian Peterson is in the news after an incident at Houston nightclub Live at Bayou Place last week. The Vikings running back was detained by off-duty police at the nightclub on a charge of resisting arrest. According to reports, Peterson was drunk and disorderly, shoving an officer at last call, then requiring three officers to restrain him. The 27-year-old, who has hired Rusty Hardin (of Roger Clemens fame) as his attorney, is the latest in a long history of athletes getting into trouble at a nightclub. Here is a look at some other memorable incidents.

Tony Parker

In June, Parker found himself in the middle of a bottle-throwing brawl between the entourages of hip-hop artists Drake and Chris Brown at New York City nightclub W.i.P. Parker, who is friends with Brown, was caught in the middle and suffered a damaged retina that required surgery after a shard of glass penetrated his left eye. The injury called into question the NBA All-Star's availability for France's Olympic team, but he was ultimately cleared to play in early July. A $20 million lawsuit that the 30-year-old Parker filed against the club still stands.

Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry

Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and other members of Team Canada participating in the 2012 World Championships allegedly made threats to some Finnish nightclub goers in May at the Helsinki venue Circus. The Finns were said to be heckling the team after an overtime loss to the United States and Getzlaf reportedly "threatened to knock everyone out in three minutes." No punches were believed to have been thrown.

Ben Roethlisberger

The two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback was accused by a 20-year-old college student of sexual assault in the bathroom of a Milledgeville, Ga., nightclub while out with friends celebrating his 28th birthday. Formal charges were never brought after the local district attorney deemed the investigation inconclusive beyond a reasonable doubt to prosecute. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell handed the Ohio native a six-game ban for violating the league's personal conduct policy before eventually reducing it to four. In January of this year, it was also reported that Roethlisberger settled a civil lawsuit over an unrelated rape accusation stemming from an alleged incident at the Harrah's Lake Tahoe hotel in 2008. Terms of the private settlement were not disclosed.

Hideki Irabu

The late pitcher Irabu, a six-season veteran of the Yankees, Expos and Rangers, was arrested in August 2008 and subsequently pled guilty after reportedly downing 20 mugs of beer and assaulting a bartender in his native Japan, according to Osaka police. Irabu, whose body was discovered in his Los Angeles home after he committed suicide in July 2011, became incensed and violent after his credit card was declined.

Plaxico Burress

Burress famously served a two-year prison sentence after accidentally shooting himself in the leg when his pistol, tucked in the waistband of his sweat pants, went off while he was at a New York City nightclub.

John Daly

In October 2008, Daly was held overnight in a North Carolina jail after passing out drunk in the early morning hours at a Winston-Salem Hooters restaurant. Daly was not charged with a crime, but because he did not have transportation, was taken into custody until he sobered up.

Ryan O'Byrne

Defenseman Ryan O'Byrne and forward Tom Kostopoulis were arrested following a Montreal Canadiens team dinner in February 2008 outside a South Tampa, Fla., nightclub called Whiskey Park. O'Byrne, then a 23-year-old rookie, was charged with felony grand theft after he allegedly stole a woman's purse and cell phone from the bar counter. He claimed they belonged to his girlfriend, though he could not provide her name when asked by Tampa Police. Kostopoulis, then 29, was charged with resisting an officer without violence. Both posted bail and were released. Charges against both were eventually dropped, O'Byrne apologizing to the victim and agreed to perform community service in Canada.

Alex Rodriguez

In 2007, a then-married A-Rod was featured on the front page of the New York Post accompanying a well-known stripper to Toronto's Brass Rail all-nude club.

Pacman Jones

Though the jury verdict is in appeal, Jones was recently ordered to pay $11.7 million to three victims for his role in a shooting incident at a Las Vegas strip club in 2007 that left one of the plaintiffs paralyzed from the waist down. After a one-year ban by the NFL following a handful of other off-the-field criminal activities, Jones was involved in two separate incidences in 2008, one where he was accused of striking a woman at an Atlanta strip club and another where he infamously fought his own security guard outside of a Dallas hotel during his one-year stint with the Cowboys. Jones recently made an appearance at the NFL's Rookie Symposium to tell the league's next batch of newcomers to avoid many of the mistakes he has made in his own young career.

Stephen Jackson

Jackson was already on the NBA's bad side for his part in the 2004 Pistons-Pacers brawl when he visited an Indianapolis strip club and allegedly fired five shots from a 9-mm pistol in what he claimed was self-defense after being hit by a car. Jackson pled guilty to a felony charge of criminal recklessness and served a seven-game suspension in 2007.

The Gold Club

In the famous Atlanta-based Gold Club case from 2001, a federal racketeering investigation revealed that basketball players Patrick Ewing, Dennis Rodman, Jerry Stackhouse, John Starks and other members of the Knicks agreed to visit the club in return for sexual favors from dancers. NFL running backs Jamal Anderson and Terrell Davis as well as professional wrestling promoter Eric Bischoff were also alleged to have patronized the club for such illegal services.

Gerard Warren

The Browns' top draft pick in 2001 was arrested three months into his rookie season for carrying an unlicensed firearm outside a Pittsburgh nightclub. He was suspended by then-coach Butch Davis and fined the equivalent of one game's paycheck by the team.

Jose and Ozzie Canseco

The Canseco brothers, Jose and Ozzie (pictured), assaulted two male California tourists outside a Miami Beach nightclub on Halloween 2001. In 2002, the Cansecos pled guilty to criminal battery charges, and in 2005 a jury awarded the two plaintiffs $1 million in damages.

Mark Messier

Messsier, who won the Stanley Cup six times, made headlines when he brought the Cup to his favorite strip club in Edmonton, the Forum Inn, after the Oilers won the championship in 1987. In 1994, after winning it again with the Rangers, he took the Cup to Scores in Manhattan. The NHL subsequently assigned a handler to travel with the trophy at all times and banned strip clubs for the Cup.

Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, Rick Aguilera and Tim Teufel

Four members of New York's eventual World Series-winning team -- starting pitchers Ron Darling (pictured), Bob Ojeda and Rick Aguilera along with second baseman Tim Teufel -- were arrested on an early July morning for fighting with bouncers outside a Houston-area bar called Cooter's. One of the bouncers was also an off-duty cop and Teufel and Darling were charged with aggravated assault on a police officer. The players spent 10 hours in jail before being released after the team posted bail.

Peter Storey

Storey, pictured here with Arsenal club chairman Denis Hill-Wood in 1971, was fined and given a deferred jail sentence in 1979 for running a brothel in East London. In separate incidents, he later served time for funding a counterfeit gold coin operation, smuggling pornographic films and automobile theft.

Joe Namath

Namath owned a stake in the Manhattan night club Bachelors III, but then-commissioner Pete Rozelle, citing restrictions in Namath's contract, ordered him to sell his share after discovering the presence of alleged Mafia members at the club. Namath called the commissioner's bluff, suddenly retiring, rather than being pushed around. Rozelle and Namath eventually met and came to an agreement that Namath could maintain ownership in two other clubs by the same name in Miami and Boston, but had to sell his stake in the New York location. Namath rescinded his retirement after just two weeks.

Billy Martin

Martin, pictured here in 1955 with Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle, had a long history of night club incidents, starting with his 29th birthday party at the Copacabana in May 1957. The celebration resulted in a physical altercation between outfielder Hank Bauer and another club patron. Yankees' GM George Weiss, who long-believed Martin was a bad influence on Mantle and Ford, shipped Martin off to Kansas City a month after the incident. As manager, "Billy the Kid" had any number of other fisticuffs, including notoriously hitting a Minnesota marshmallow salesman in the face at a hotel bar in 1979. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner quickly fired him to bring an end to Martin's second stint as manager. Back with the Yankees for the fourth time as manager in 1985, Martin got into fights on consecutive nights at the bar of the Cross Keys Inn, one with the groom of a wedding, the other with one of his own starting pitchers, Eddie Lee Whiston, which resulted in a broken right arm and two cracked ribs for Martin. During his last stretch as manager of the Yanks, Martin was involved in a fight with three men in the bathroom of Lace, a topless club in Arlington, Texas. Martin required more than 40 stitches to his head, but was back in the dugout to manage the next day. Martin was let go for the final time one month later after a four-game losing streak that had the Yankees second in the AL East.

Trouble at the Nightclub