[Sanchez:] Welcome back now. I'm Rick Sanchez. It's time to look at our follow-up list. This is all about Lawrence Taylor. It happened here yesterday. He's on Nutrisystem commercials, that's the weight-loss company. He cut ties today with that company as a from the information that we've been learning. This after Taylor was charged with third-degree rape and patronizing a prostitute yesterday. Third-degree means that he isn't charged with forcing himself on the girl. In this case, it means that she was underage, 16 years old. Taylor's attorney said that Taylor denied the changes and will fight them.
[Unidentified Male:] Lawrence Taylor did not have consensual sex with anybody last night.
[Unidentified Female:] How about a sexual act?
[Unidentified Male:] He is charged with rape. Lawrence Taylor did not rape anybody. Am I clear?
[Unidentified Female:] What was the admission of $300?
[Unidentified Male:] I have no idea what that admission was. I don't know what that money was. I don't know who that admission was to, when it was, under what circumstances it was gotten under.
[Sanchez:] Taylor also getting support from his wife. Lynette Taylor told our Larry King, quote, "She believes that he was set up, that this is all a plot to somehow nab him by enemies." Now, this is interesting. Lynette Taylor was scheduled to appear on "LARRY KING LIVE," remember I told you that yesterday about this time? But at the last minute she just canceled. In fact, look at the expression on Larry's face on this tweet. You see that? I love that expression, him holding the phone with his mouth open. It says here, "Lynette Taylor canceled 24 minutes before airtime." It says she'll come on next week. What does that say? Meanwhile, two-time Super bowl championship, onetime Pittsburgh PA hero, Ben Roethlisberger, is on the cover now of "SI." The suspended NFL quarterback is depicted as a sloppy, careless, abusive womanizer with a propensity for hanging out at drinking establishments, especially the ones that let him in for free or drink for free. Who wants that said about him? Jack McCallum wrote the story for "SI" and joins me live. Did I miss anything in the way I described him, by the way?
[Jack Mccallum, Senior Writer, "sports Illustrated":] That would pretty much do it. That is what would be on the father's day card, so it's a good summary.
[Sanchez:] It's pretty ugly. He seems like a man who is just careless and out of control, but there's something else underneath all of this, and I'm interested in why you chose that headline, or why "SI" chose the "Hangover" headline.
[Mccallum:] Well, I think, you know, it's too not too long of a show to go into the criminal prosecution aspects.
[Sanchez:] Right.
[Mccallum:] But Ben Roethlisberger was not has not been charged with a crime. He's a subject of two civil suits. In the most recent case in Georgia, it did not rise to the level of prosecution according to the district attorney. Therefore, the story kind of became when myself and David Epstein, another "SI" writer, went there. What's gone on in Pittsburgh? How else do they think about him? What is the last think effective the kind of civic malaise hangs over the city when it happens to one of its heroes? And David and I were both flabbergasted to find out it's probably a lot more serious than we thought. We expected to get hey, stop picking on our Ben. We more got, oh, yes, you should hear the story I heard.
[Sanchez:] Wow.
[Mccallum:] So it's more like he's in a position when you start offending the little people in a town like Pittsburgh
[Sanchez:] It's going to get around.
[Mccallum:] that's when you really have trouble.
[Sanchez:] Yes, it's going to get around.
[Mccallum:] Yes.
[Sanchez:] There were so many good stories when I read through your entire story and I was taken aback by several of them. I'm thinking now of that you write a story about him going to a casino, and getting a kid fired who had a pretty good gig but his job was to ask people for their I.D. As you write it, correct me if I'm wrong, he walks in with a woman, the woman gets carded or asked questions. Ben takes offense to it, says, look, I know I know your boss. Literally goes to the boss and the guy said he was fired. You don't do people like that.
[Mccallum:] No. And that's one of the civil cases that is in effect the waiter had worked there for 12 years at Harrah's, he was a totally legitimate employee. Ben was there not just with a young woman, but a group of men. So, it became kind of this bullying, look who we are, we know the boss. This kind of underlying kind of entitlement that goes along sometimes, and that's the kind of behavior that he's going to have to really correct if his pro career's going to go on in Pittsburgh.
[Sanchez:] Let me show you a clip. Roger, show just a little bit of his apology after the Milledgeville incident. Do that, would you? Thanks.
[Ben Roethlisberger, Nfl Quarterback:] I absolutely want to the leader this team deserves, valued in the community, and a role model to kids. I have much work to do to earn this trust.
[Sanchez:] When I watched that that day and I went back and looked at it several times, he's unshaven, needs a haircut, wearing a sloppy shirt. He's reading everything, almost like he doesn't even know like somebody handed it to him two seconds before he read it. I'm just thinking out loud here and then looking at the title that you guys use "The Hangover" is this really about alcohol? Is this guy having problems just going through life without some kind of substance?
[Mccallum:] I don't want to say that, and I certainly that day, I have no idea if Ben he looked it certainly was not, would not have put on "GQ's" best dressed look. I do know this, this whole athlete apology, there's a 250-page book to be written somehow, because if you contrast that with Tiger Woods, Tiger showed up like he was going to the "GQ" best dressed look, proceeded to give a heartfelt kind of sincere thing, and was probably lambasted by half the populace for appears kind of insincere and scripted. The best advice to athletes, don't get yourself in this kind of difficulty when you have to apologize. You can't seem able to pull it off.
[Sanchez:] You know what? Tweet it. Tweet it.
[Mccallum:] There you go. Open mouth, like Larry King, take care of the whole thing.
[Sanchez:] I started this tweeting thing and I love it. Great stuff. Great reporting. Enjoyed the article and I'd recommend that anybody out in who wants to get a sense of the character, read the story, because it really is it very much tells who Ben seems to be at this point in this life. And by the way, we wish him well. We hope he's able to come out of this and do what he's promised he do. Thanks so much. Appreciate your time.
[Mccallum:] Thanks.
[Sanchez:] Our list now of the most intriguing people in the news. That's next. Stay right there.