THE DRUG DEALER AND THE JUDGE
Caesar, best remembered as a defensive tackle out of the University of Miami, didn't see any game action his only year in the NFL. He made $112,000 that year. His career over at 25, he drifted up to North Carolina and was arrested for cocaine possession, according to court records.
He cleaned up, headed back to his hometown of Newark, N.J., and landed a city job. But he plunged back into drugs as he fought a bitter custody battle with the mother of his children and resigned from his job rather than get laid off.
His brother recruited him to work for a heroin smuggling ring that paid Caesar $1,000 a week to sell drugs in Syracuse, N.Y., court records show. A New York state grand jury indicted him in June 2009 on a heroin possession charge and that was followed a year later by a federal indictment for his role in the drug operation. He cut deals in both cases, receiving prison sentences that will keep him behind bars until July 2013.
"Mark Caesar could be a 'poster child' to illustrate the destruction caused by substance abuse," his attorney wrote in court documents. Caesar, 42, could not be reached by the Sun Sentinel. He's listed as "in transit" on the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website.
Caesar, best remembered as a defensive tackle out of the University of Miami, didn't see any game action his only year in the NFL. He made $112,000 that year. His career over at 25, he drifted up to North Carolina and was arrested for cocaine possession, according to court records.
He cleaned up, headed back to his hometown of Newark, N.J., and landed a city job. But he plunged back into drugs as he fought a bitter custody battle with the mother of his children and resigned from his job rather than get laid off.
His brother recruited him to work for a heroin smuggling ring that paid Caesar $1,000 a week to sell drugs in Syracuse, N.Y., court records show. A New York state grand jury indicted him in June 2009 on a heroin possession charge and that was followed a year later by a federal indictment for his role in the drug operation. He cut deals in both cases, receiving prison sentences that will keep him behind bars until July 2013.
"Mark Caesar could be a 'poster child' to illustrate the destruction caused by substance abuse," his attorney wrote in court documents. Caesar, 42, could not be reached by the Sun Sentinel. He's listed as "in transit" on the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website.
