There are moral grounds and legal grounds.
Legally this isn’t a story, morally I am going to give you the option. Deadspin promised the details and released the information.
Here is the gist of her story:
E.K, fearful of the potential backlash and tabloid infamy that might ensue, decided it would be best to tell her version of the story so there would be no misunderstandings. We spoke on the phone soon after, and here’s what she told me: This New Year’s Eve, E.K. and some of her friends were at the Manhattan nightclub Lavo, doing whatever underage girls do at Manhattan nightclubs on New Year’s Eve.
As noted in this New York Post item, Sanchez made a cameo there, along with tight end Dustin Keller. He was there long enough to chat up our young protagonist. E.K. told me that Sanchez sidled up to her, and the two talked for a while. She gave him her BlackBerry number and flirted a bit. “You know I’m 17, right?” she remembers saying. Sanchez kept his cool. “Well, we can still talk, but I can’t see you until you’re 18,” he said. “Actually,” E.K. replied, “17 is legal in New York.” Poise all around.
And then came the somewhat-awkward moment when I asked E.K. if she hooked up with him.
“Yeah,” she said, somewhat reluctantly. “We went back to his place in Jersey after dinner. He lives on a golf course. There was a big storm.”
Thundersnow, I suspect. I told her I’d make sure it’s legal in Jersey for a girl her age to hook up with a 24-year-old man.
“It is. It’s 16,” she said. “I checked.”
“He’s a really nice guy, you know?” E.K. went on. Was she smitten?
“I can say that he’s one of the kindest people, and he’s a genuine person,” she said. “I know he’s a guy, whatever, like, it’s not that. Not that it matters to me at all.”
She paused.
“It scares me a little bit,” she allowed.
Mark Sanchez is 24, I can’t lie when I was in my early 20s I knew plenty of guys between the ages of 20-25 that were dating and breaking lamps with 16,17 and 18 year old girls.
I can’t say that it is unusual.
If you take her story at face value, even Sanchez acknowledges he needs to “wait” until she is 18, until she points out what the legal age is in New York (she had her eyes on the prize).
Personally if I was Mark Sanchez I wouldn’t have chanced it and of course the young lady could be lying, but I have dealt with enough of these type of stories to tend to believe what she is saying for the most part is true (the pics on his house help as well).
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Who Mark Sanchez shacks up with is really none of our business, it becomes a story when the young lady runs to Deadspin. That’s why it is very important that athletes’ especially when dealing with younger women need to be more aware.
If for whatever reason this young lady was lying and was really 15 or 16, it could have become a much bigger issue.
Just be a little more smarter.
