Gooden’s Girlfriend Arrested for Carrying Pistol
New York Met pitcher Dwight Gooden’s girlfriend, Carlene Pearson, 21, was arrested at LaGuardia Airport Friday for carrying a stolen .38-caliber pistol. A security guard monitoring a metal detector noticed that she was carrying the loaded gun in her handbag.
Jay Horwitz, spokesman for the Mets, said Pearson was heading to the Delta gate to meet Gooden, who had flown to New York from his home in Tampa. She was arrested and taken away before they could meet.
“The gun has nothing to do with Dwight,” Gooden’s lawyer, Charles Ehrlich, said. “It was a derringer (a small weapon), which is what a woman would carry in her purse for protection.”
The pistol was reported stolen in 1982. Pearson was charged with criminal possession of stolen property and criminal possession of a weapon.
Last April, Gooden, his sister Betty Jones and Pearson were involved in a dispute with a rental car agency clerk at LaGuardia.
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