On Saturday, Michael Cohen and John Diedrich released a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailing the long, sometimes violent criminal history of Green Bay Packers’ defensive tackle Letroy Guion. The Packers re-signed Guion on a one-year deal last February and he then served a three-game suspension to start this season due to a violation of the NFL’s substance abuse policy, but Cohen and Diedrich’s story sheds a lot of light on a criminal history that would normally warrant more severe punishment by the league.
#Packers DL Letroy Guion was linked by informants to drug trade, faced domestic violence charges. Our investigation: https://t.co/A60OsGdpr4
— Michael Cohen (@Michael_Cohen13) October 24, 2015
While his arrest this past February was due to a traffic stop resulting in found drugs, $190,000 in cash and a gun, his record with local police in Starke, Florida, is much more lengthy and contains charges of stalking and domestic battery of the mother of his child. These occurred during his time with the Vikings, who drafted him in the fifth round of the 2008 NFL draft and were kept largely under the radar thanks to a combination of legal agreements that eventually allowed those charges to be dropped.
Read in whole, the investigation points a bright light at the type of favored legal treatment a star athlete can expect to receive in most courts of law, especially in their hometown. Starke is an incredibly poor town in the northeast corner of Florida, and Guion clearly grew up in a tough situation, with a father and stepfather who have both had their own drug issues. He rose to prominence on the football field, eventually getting a scholarship offer to Florida State, where he stood out on the defensive line before declaring for the draft after his junior year. While some of his personal issues have been known for some time, this is still a surprisingly long record that, until now, has managed to be kept under wraps by Guion and the NFL.
