BOSTON — Former NFL player Gosder Cherilus has been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after he allegedly drunkenly punched a man and urinated on another passenger during a flight from Boston to Dublin, Massachusetts State Police said Monday.
Cherilus, 40, a first-round draft pick of the Detroit Lions in 2008 who also played for the Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was arrested early Sunday after the Delta Air Lines flight returned to Logan International Airport.
Officers ordered Cherilus, from Wakefield, near Boston, to leave the plane but he “became enraged and uncooperative”, police said. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and disrupting the flight crew.
According to the police report, he appeared to be drunk when he boarded the plane, allegedly argued with the flight crew about his seat and, an hour into the flight, urinated on an elderly passenger. He then punched another passenger and took his seat before passing out, the report says.
The Boston Globe said Cherilus was arraigned Monday in East Boston District Court.
“It's pretty heinous what you did, as alleged,” Judge Debra A. DelVecchio told Cherilus.
Cherilus issued an apology on Instagram on Monday, saying she took “a sleeping medication that I do not normally use, which resulted in behavior that is not representative of my character.”
In a statement on Monday, Delta confirmed that there was an “unruly customer” on the flight and that the other passengers were later transferred to Dublin. The airline did not say how long the flight was delayed, but Cherilus said it was “approximately four hours.”
“Delta has zero tolerance for illegal conduct and will cooperate with law enforcement to do so,” the company said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travel.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
