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Plaxico Burress Getting Existential in Prison
By
Ben Yakas
Published Sep 19, 2010
Modified Sep 19, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Sep 19, 2010
Modified Sep 19, 2010
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The Giants face off against the Indianapolis Colts today, but the only thing former star wide reciever Plaxico Burress will be facing is nine more months in prison. A gaunt Burress gave a long, in-depth interview with Daily News from behind bars, in which he recounts the hardships and dissapointment of prison life. "I didn't do anything to anybody. I did it to myself. I committed a crime. I broke the law. That's why I'm here. I can't do anything about it...If I'm so intent on going back to that moment, then I'm not making any progress. I'm not moving forward," he said.
Burress has had lots of time to contemplate how he went from the Super Bowl to prison, mistakenly shooting himself in the thigh at a club in 2008. His new existential attitude is reflected in the tattoo that extends across his shoulder blades: "Everything happens for a reason." That reason might have more than a little to do with the state in which he made his mistake: NY has the stiffest gun laws in the country.
His lawyer Peter Frankel admits that the shooting caused the "perfect storm of negativity" for the Giants, but his harsh penalty wouldn't have occured in other states: "Do I think he would've gotten two years in jail for this anywhere else? Not in a million years," said Frankel. One legal source told the News that fully half of the almost 400 prosecutors in the Manhattan D.A.'s office thought Burress should have gotten no time at all for his crime, given the specifics of his case and that this was his first offense.
Burress has lost nearly 20 pounds in protective custody, and thinks he's in better shape then when he arrived, the byproduct of plenty of workout time. He's has applied for and been denied work release twice already, and will likely have to serve the rest of his two-year sentence. But whenever he gets out, he wants to play: "I'm not just going to come back and play. I'm going to come back and play at a high level. Nobody is going to be more dedicated than me to getting back to a championship...That's the only way I can redeem myself, so to speak."
Tagged
football
gun
gun law
nfl
ny giants
plaxico burress
prison
thigh
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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