National Football League

Burress broke down many times in jail

Published Aug. 13, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Plaxico Burress will describe his journey from Super Bowl hero to the Latin Quarter to the Oneida Correctional Facility to the New York Jets in an interview on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" to air Tuesday night.

"I had a drink in my left hand," Burress said in the interview. "I'm just walking up the stairs. And, you know, it was dark. And I kind of, you know, missed a step. That's when I felt my gun ... started to slide. I went to grab it ... to stop it from falling. Pow.

"I knew it had went off. I saw the fire, like, come through my jeans."

Burress never thought he would go to jail, even after his wife Tiffany, an attorney, told him he could be made an example.

His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, informed Burress that his bail had been raised from $10,000 to $250,000 following comments made by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a press conference.

"I came out, you know, from my little holding cell to the arraignment, and I sat down with Ben," Burress said. "He was like, 'We got a problem.' I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Mayor Bloomberg just went on TV, said you should be, you know, punished to the full extent of the law.' And you know what I said after that? I said, 'Who is Mayor Bloomberg?'"

Burress' appeal to the grand jury for compassion fell on deaf ears.

"I'm saying to myself, 'I'm going to talk to some regular people that live in these streets up in New York City,'" he said. "And they're going to sit there and listen to me and say, 'The guy was just ... not smart. Made a bad decision. The guy shot his self. Nobody else was harmed, you know. He'll just learn a lesson from that in itself.'

"I was wrong again. Half of those people had no idea who I was, half of those people. They just saw a African-American over there sitting around making a lot of money carrying a gun into a club and shot his self."

Burress went on to address two domestic disturbances with his wife and detailed his 21 months in jail. He said he cleaned showers and toilets and mopped floors and stairwells, while also admitting that he "lost count" of the times he broke down in tears.

Burress will not play in the Jets' preseason opener on Monday due to a sprained ankle suffered in training camp.

Asked if he needed to have a great year to complete a redemption story, Burress said, "I've already had a great year. Everything else is gonna be icing on the cake."