Former NFL player Gosder Cherilus was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning after he allegedly became disruptive during a Delta Air Lines flight from Boston to Dublin, Ireland, and at one point urinated on an elderly seatmate.
The 40-year-old ex-offensive lineman who retired from the NFL in 2017 has been charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Massachusetts State Police who were called to meet the flight after it had to divert back to Boston.
Cherilus has since taken to Instagram to blame the late departure of Delta flight DL154, along with sleeping medication that he had never taken before, for his erratic behavior aboard the transatlantic flight.
According to State Police, Cherilus appeared drunk when he boarded the delayed flight, which ended up departing Boston Logan Airport nearly four hours late.
The Boeing 767 was scheduled to takeoff at around 8:35 pm on August 17 but didn’t end up departing until nearly 12:30 am, at which point, Cherilus says he took sleeping medication to prepare for the “unexpected” overnight flight.
Upon boarding the flight, Cherilus is accused of arguing with a flight attendant about his seat, although the flight still departed with Cherilus onboard. Around an hour into the flight, Cherilus’ behavior worsened and he allegedly urinated on an elderly passenger.
After urinating on the victim, Cherilus then allegedly hit another passenger before stealing their seat and passing out.
At this point, the pilots decided to return to Boston where law enforcement were waiting to take him into custody.
“Troopers verbally commanded Cherilus to leave the plane, but he became irate and uncooperative. Eventually, Troopers escorted Cherilus to the jet bridge and placed him under arrest for Disorderly Conduct and Disturbing a Flight Crew,” the State Police said in a statement on Monday.
After being released from custody, Cherilus posted a short statement on his Instagram page: “I’d like to address the media reports about me that surfaced today regarding a situation that occurred onboard a flight to Ireland this past weekend.”
The statement continued: “The flight was unexpectedly delayed for approximately four hours, and it did not takeoff until 12:30 am. In preparation for the unexpected overnight flight, I took a sleeping medication that I don’t normally use, which resulted in behavior that is not representative of my character, and I would like to apologize to the passengers and flight crew”.
A spokesperson for Delta said the airline has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards unruly passengers. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travel,” the statement added.
