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It's become increasingly rare for a day to go by without an athlete getting arrested. From drug busts to domestic violence incidents, it seems like a different athlete is getting taken to jail every time we turn around. So when we sat down to create a list of the dumbest crimes ever committed by athletes, it turned out to be a challenge. Because truthfully, this list could have had hundreds, if not thousands, of athletes on it.
In an effort to trim it down, we had to be selective and only include the dumbest of the dumb sports criminals. So on this list, you'll find a guy who accidentally shot himself in the leg and then went to prison for two years for doing it (you know who we're talking about, right?), a guy who got caught not once but twice for impersonating a police officer with an honorary badge, and a guy who thought it would be a good idea to take a dump in the closet of a college dorm room. These are truly The Dumbest Crimes in Sports History. What were these athletes thinking?!
Nate Newton
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2001
Crime: Got caught with 175 pounds of marijuana in his car in Dallas, Texas
Getting caught with 175 pounds of marijuana in your car is stupid. But what made Newton's crime even stupider was that he had actually gotten arrested in November 2001—just one month before he got caught with 175 pounds of marijuana—for driving a van that was loaded with more than 200 pounds of pot. So in the span of just 40 days or so, he was busted for trying to transport almost 400 pounds of marijuana. It didn't occur to him that he shouldn't be anywhere near illegal drugs while out on bail on his first arrest? SMH.
Raheem Brock
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2011
Crime: Walked out on a $27 bar tab in Philadelphia and resisted arrest
Brock didn’t just walk out on a $27 bar tab. He acknowledged the tab, refused to pay it, and then resisted arrest when police arrived. Even a part-time gig at McDonald’s can cover a few Coronas, so who knows why Brock refused to pay. Instead of paying the tab, Brock spent his night in a jail cell.
Olden Polynice
Sport Played: NBA
Year: 2000
Crime: Impersonated a police officer—twice—with an honorary badge that was given to him by the Los Angeles Police Department
Towards the end of his playing career, the former Jazz center was given an honorary badge. But rather than keep it at home as a memento, he kept it on him and actually tried to use it to intimidate people on at least two separate occasions. The first time came in September 2000 when Polynice flashed the badge at a fellow driver after the driver made a rude gesture in his direction. “I'm with the California Sheriff's Office and I can have you arrested,” he reportedly yelled. And then, he did it again one month later when he followed a couple home after he got cut off in traffic and flashed the badge. It seems he didn't know that the badge didn't make him a real police officer.
Chris Perez
Sport Played: MLB
Year: 2013
Crime: Had marijuana delivered to his rental house in Rocky River, Ohio under his dog's name
Rather than finding a local drug dealer and buying weed from him, the Indians closer decided to have a bunch of marijuana mailed to his house. And in an effort to keep the police off his tail, he put his dog's name on the package. What in the world was he smoking when he came up with that plan?
Plaxico Burress
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2008
Crime: Accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own gun at a nightclub in New York City and got charged with two felony counts of criminal possession of a weapon for doing it
What's worse—that Plax shot himself in the leg and injured himself badly or that he had to go to jail later because he shot himself in the leg with a gun that wasn't registered properly? That's a difficult question to answer. But either way, the former Giants wide receiver essentially ruined the prime of his career when he decided to take a gun with him to a nightclub. In a way, he's lucky that he didn't do more harm to himself. But we still can't get over the predicament that he placed himself in when he shot his own self in the leg.
Antonio Morrison
Sport Played: NCAAF
Year: 2013
Crime: Barked at a police dog in Gainesville, Fla. and then resisted arrest
On June 16, the University of Florida star was arrested for punching a bouncer at a nightclub. Then, just five days later, he was arrested again for “barking” at a police dog and resisting arrest. Morrison walked up to an open window of a marked patrol car and barked at a K-9 dog named “Bear.” We can all understand trying out your best DMX impression, but using it on a K-9 unit? Bad dog.
Najeh Davenport
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2002
Crime: Broke into a dorm room at Barry University in Miami, Fla. and defecating in a woman's closet
Uh, what now?! Defecating in a woman's closet? Yup. Miami police claimed that Davenport, who was playing for the Packers at the time, broke into a dorm room and took a dump in a laundry basket that was inside of a woman's closet while she slept. And we think that the woman, later identified as Mary McCarthy, summed up his actions perfectly in a lawsuit that she filed later when she said that what Davenport did was “so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and, further, can only be deemed atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Sounds about right.
Pedro Guerrero
Sport Played: MLB
Year: 1999
Crime: Got caught trying to buy $200,000 worth of cocaine in Miami
Guerrero is borderline retarded. At least, that’s what Guerrero’s attorney claimed when he was charged with trying to buy 33 pounds of cocaine from an undercover agent. His attorney said that the four-time MLB All-Star and co-MVP of the 1981 World Series never finished 6th grade in the Dominican Republic and has an IQ of 70. He also argued that Guerrero could not write checks, make his own bed, or buy insurance. The low IQ defense actually worked as Guerrero was acquitted of all charges. But still, WTF?
Ryan O'Byrne
Sport Played: NHL
Year: 2008
Crime: Took a woman's purse and cell phone from a restaurant in Tampa, Fla.
NHL rookies don't make the most money in the world. But they do make more—way more—than the average Joe. So people were puzzled when they heard that O'Byrne, who was a rookie with the Canadiens at the time, had stolen a purse and a cell phone from a woman at a restaurant during a team dinner. It's worth noting that, on that particular night, O'Byrne and his fellow rookies were asked to foot the bill for the dinner, which might explain why he was strapped for cash. But still, you're an NHL player, dude! Some poor woman's purse is not your personal ATM.
Mike Vrabel
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2011
Crime: Took several bottles of alcohol from a deli in Vevay, Ind.
A paycheck from a single NFL game could buy Vrabel unlimited alcohol, which is why it's mind-numbing to try and explain why he was arrested for stealing bottles of alcohol from a deli. Plus, Vrabel has three Super Bowl rings, so we're sure he can gets free drinks from almost anywhere, no? Here’s more proof that the NFL has a problem with concussions, because nothing can explain Vrabel’s decision-making process here.
Mike Leake
Sport Played: MLB
Year: 2011
Crime: Shoplifted $59.88 worth of clothing from a Macy's in Cincinnati, Ohio
At the time of this crime, the Reds pitcher was “only” making about $425,000, which is far less than the nearly $6 million that he's making now. But that still doesn't explain why he got caught red-handed on a Macy's surveillance camera removing the security tags from six American Rag T-shirts and then trying to leave the store with them. It'd be one thing if he was some Single-A minor league player still scraping together whatever he could just to make ends meet (not that that would make his stealing acceptable). But Leake was in the big leagues and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for pitching once a week! So why did he have to resort to stealing 60 bucks worth of T-shirts?
Dhani Jones
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2006
Crime: Refused to stop dancing outside of a club in Miami, Fla.
Even though it should be illegal for some people to dance as poorly as they do, it's not a crime to bust a move. Well, it's not a crime unless a police officer specifically asks you not to do it. So when a cop asked Jones to stop dancing outside a nightclub back when he was still playing in the NFL, he should have listened. Or at the very least, he should have gotten out of the middle of the street. He didn't, though, and he ended up getting arrested for, essentially, dancing.
Pat McAfee
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2010
Crime: Got drunk and jumping into a canal in Indianapolis, Ind. before getting busted for public intoxication
The good thing about McAfee's story was that it didn't involve him getting drunk and then getting behind the wheel of the car. But it was still ridiculous to hear about the wild night he had during the Colts' bye week in the middle of the 2010-11 NFL season. He reportedly got ripped in the Broad Ripple section of Indy before deciding to jump into a canal on a whim. And then, when police saw him a few minutes later and asked him why he was soaking wet, he tried to cover his tracks by responding, “It was raining.” Uh, raining shots of Patron? McAfee ended up getting arrested and was later suspended one game by the NFL for being a jackass.
Louis Murphy
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2011
Crime: Possessed a bottle of Viagra in Gainesville, Fla. with no prescription
If you were riding around in your car with an unmarked bottle of unprescribed Viagra, you would think that you would do everything in your power to avoid having the police find it. Not Murphy. He got pulled over one night for having the music in his car turned up too loud. Then, he wouldn't show police his ID. And finally, he refused to allow a cop to place him under arrest. As a result of all of this, the police found his unmarked bottle of Viagra—which he said was unmarked “because he did not want his girlfriend to know he had a prescription for it”—and threw him in jail. Oh, what a night.
Ed Belfour
Sport Played: NHL
Year: 2000
Crime: Fought with people at The Mansion hotel in Dallas, Texas and then tried to offer police officers a $1 billion (!) bribe to let him go
Does the old “Do you know who I am?” approach to dealing with police officers ever work for athletes? Maybe it does. Maybe there are some cops out there who let athletes carry on with their illegal activities simply because they're athletes. But it didn't work out for the former Stars goalie, who attempted to bribe some cops after they arrested him for assault and resisting arrest. He tried to offer the cops—get this—$1 billion if they would let him go rather than arresting him. And believe it or not, the cops didn't fall for the old “I'll give you $1 billion if you don't arrest me” gag, just like they don't usually fall for the old “Do you know who I am?” trick, either.
Josh Booth
Sport Played: Rowing
Year: 2012
Crime: Smashed the window of an engineering firm in London while mistakenly thinking he was breaking into his own house in a drunken rage
At first glance, Booth's story doesn't sound all that crazy. He was arrested for smashing a window. However, it gets better, er, worse. As it turns out, the Australian rower broke the window of a building because he was apparently so drunk that he thought he was at his house in Australia when he was actually in London for the 2012 Summer Olympics. What in the world was he drinking that made him feel like he was literally in another country?
Dion Lewis
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2012
Crime: Pulled a fire alarm at a hotel in Albany, N.Y.
In July 2012, Lewis was scheduled to give a talk to a group of kids at a Boys & Girls Club about “how to make better choices.” But that talk had to be abruptly canceled after the running back, who was playing for the Eagles at the time, and his brother got busted for pulling a fire alarm and disrupting a hotel full of people. And why did they pull the alarm? Why, because they had both been out drinking one night and had forgotten to bring their keys to get back into the hotel building. So rather than, you know, calling someone at the hotel and having them open the door, they decided to sound the fire alarm so that they could re-enter once everyone started leaving the premises. Smart!
Cam Newton
Sport Played: NCAAF
Year: 2008
Crime: Stole another student's laptop and then threw it out his dorm room window at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla.
A lot of people are guilty of doing stupid things in college. But Newton's worst college story makes your worst story look like child's play. While he was a backup QB for Tim Tebow at the University of Florida, he thought it would be a good idea to steal another student's laptop. He even wrote his name on it and everything. But when police came to investigate the laptop theft, Newton tossed the computer out the window and thought that would help him get away with the crime. One problem: HIS NAME WAS ON THE LAPTOP. So he was arrested a short time later and, eventually, got thrown off the football team at Florida for his stupid behavior.
Golden Tate
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2010
Crime: Stole a bunch of maple bars from a donut shop in Renton, Wash. at 3 a.m. before the store opened
During his time with the Seahawks, the wide receiver became a big fan of the maple bars that a shop called Top Pot Doughnuts makes. “They're irresistible,” he said in 2010. So irresistible that, early one Saturday morning, Tate and a friend decided to break into Top Pot four hours before the shop was set to open in order to grab a bunch of the bars. Tate later called it a “foolish mistake” and, fortunately for him, no charges were ever filed. But the incident became so infamous in the Renton area that Top Pot wished Tate well when he left the Seahawks this offseason and signed with the Lions.
Sam Hurd
Sport Played: NFL
Year: 2011
Crime: Attempted to buy a ridiculously large amount of cocaine in Chicago
Hurd was never an All-Pro wide receiver in the NFL and was never going to make the kind of money that All-Pro wide receivers make. So it's not a surprise that he wanted to try and find other ways outside of football to make money, even though he was in the NFL when he tried to do it. What was surprising, though, was that he decided that the best way to bring in some extra cash was to attempt to build a drug trafficking business. He had plans to cop 10 kilos of cocaine a week to distribute throughout the Chicago area. Fortunately, his business never got off the ground and he never actually made a single sale. But it was wild to think that he even tried to do it before getting busted by the feds and sentenced to 15 years in prison.