Retired NFL player Lawrence Taylor was freed from jail early Saturday after his arrest on charges he sideswiped a police car while driving drunk on Florida's Turnpike, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Troopers took Taylor, 57, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., into custody on the charge of DUI alcohol on Friday evening in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Although Taylor sustained minor injuries, no one else was hurt, the Highway Patrol said.
According to an arrest report released Saturday by the agency, Taylor's breath tests showed he had a blood-alcohol level of .082 and .084 nearly five hours after the crash. Florida's legal limit is .08.
About 5:20 p.m., Taylor was entering Florida's Turnpike from the Beeline Expressway and tried to merge into traffic in a 2010 Bentley when he struck the right side of a motor home, the Highway Patrol said. He then veered right and sideswiped a Highway Patrol vehicle, which was stopped on the shoulder of the turnpike. (The trooper whose vehicle was struck had just wrapped up an unrelated traffic stop.)
Taylor had bloodshot, watery eyes and was unsteady on his feet as the Highway Patrol performed sobriety tests on him, an arrest report said. A trooper placed Taylor in handcuffs to arrest him.
When Taylor at the jail was asked if he had anything to drink, Taylor's reply was "apparently too much," the FHP arrest report said.
Taylor required medical evaluation during the evening. Paramedics examined him before he was taken to the hospital after he complained he wasn't feeling well, the agency said. He also at one point was taken to Wellington Regional Medical Center to be evaluated.
Jail records show Taylor was booked in jail about 2:50 a.m., then was released about 4:30 a.m.
Taylor, a native of Williamsburg, Va., was one of the most fearsome defensive players in NFL history. In his 13 seasons with the New York Giants (1981-93), the outside linebacker made the Pro Bowl 10 times.
He's a two-time Super Bowl champion, three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and was the league's MVP in 1986. Taylor was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
But trouble has long followed Taylor off the field. He admitted to drug and alcohol abuse during his playing career and was suspended in 1988 for failing a drug test.
In 2009, Taylor was charged with leaving the scene of an accident after his Cadillac Escalade collided with another vehicle on the Palmetto Expressway in Miami-Dade County.
In 2011, he received six months probation and was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to sexual misconduct and patronizing a prostitute. Taylor admitted to having sex in a New York hotel with an underage prostitute that he thought was 19.
Taylor has made numerous TV and film appearances since retiring from football. He co-starred in the movie "Any Given Sunday" and appeared as himself in "The Waterboy" and "The Sopranos." He was also a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2009.
