Giants football legend Lawrence Taylor, who pleaded guilty in January to sexual misconduct and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute, was declared a low-risk sex offender yesterday, meaning there will be no photo of the Hall of Fame linebacker on public online sex-offender registries.
Rockland County Court Judge William Kelly said Taylor was not targeting children and was unlikely to commit the same crime.
“He would be awfully foolish to go out and do this again,” the judge said. As to a posted photo, he said, “I don’t see how that’s going to make the public any safer.”
Taylor has said the girl told him she was 19. The former NFL standout, who lives in Florida, did not attend the hearing.
Kelly designated Taylor a Level 1, or low-risk, sex offender. Rockland County prosecutor Patricia Gunning had argued for a Level 2 label.
Taylor was sentenced last month to six years’ probation.
The teenager made a surprise appearance at the sentencing hearing, eager to declare that Taylor should be behind bars, but she wasn’t allowed to speak in court. Speaking outside, she denied she was a prostitute, and said Taylor should have been able to tell she had been beaten by a pimp and that she was underage when they met in a hotel room in May.
Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said Taylor would be relieved to hear “he’s not going to be plastered all over the Internet. This chapter of Mr. Taylor’s life is closed.”
In New York, Level 1 offenders aren’t posted on a public Web site, but anyone who calls the state Criminal Justice Services Division can find out if a person is a sex offender.