Bengals Gave NFL Evidence in Wilson Incident

The Cincinnati Bengals say evidence collected in the hotel room where running back Stanley Wilson might have had a drug relapse the night before the Super Bowl was turned over to National Football League officials.

In response to a Cincinnati Post story, quoting a motel owner as saying that Coach Sam Wyche had collected evidence of Stanley Wilson’s apparent cocaine use, the Bengals said Tuesday:

” . . . Members of the Bengals’ staff collected from Wilson’s hotel room and preserved all materials relating to the incident. This material was delivered to the security personnel of the National Football League, which is conducting an investigation.”

The Bengals’ statement also said that the team had sought medical assistance for Wilson after they discovered him in the bathroom of his room at the Holiday Inn in Plantation, Fla., where the team had moved the night before the Super Bowl at Miami.

The statement further said that the Bengals would cooperate with the NFL investigation or with any law enforcement agency, and that the team would have no further public comment.

Wilson was suspended just before the Super Bowl Jan. 22, won by the San Francisco 49ers, 20-16. The Bengals say Wilson is not eligible to receive the $18,000 share paid to players on the losing team because the league banned him before the game.

The events surrounding the incident have remained unclear.

The Bengals and the NFL have declined to reveal details of Wilson’s relapse. He had been suspended twice before by the NFL for drug abuse.

Earlier, team officials had said that Wilson fled his room at the Holiday Inn and was not heard from until Jan. 24, when he called team officials to say he was with his parents in Miami and was leaving for an undisclosed location.

But David Katz, the owner of the Holiday Inn, told the Post that he was present when Cincinnati Police Chief Lawrence Whalen, in Miami coordinating security for the team, and an NFL security official found Wilson.

Wilson had missed a team meal and a meeting Saturday night, Jan. 21, and Katz told the newspaper that he let Whalen and an NFL security official into Wilson’s room with a pass key at about 8:30 p.m., and didn’t see any evidence of drugs.

Katz said: “Whalen came to me and said Wilson had to be in his room, that he was calling and banging on the door, but that (Wilson) wouldn’t answer. He asked for the emergency key.

“When we went in, the TV was on and blaring, the lights were on and one of the beds was mussed up like someone had been sleeping. . . . I tried to open the bathroom door and it was locked.”

According to Katz, Whalen knocked on the door, saying: “Come on Stanley, come on now. We know you’re in there.”

Katz said he opened the bathroom door with the end of a coat hanger when there was no response.

He said that Whalen turned on the lights, and saw Wilson sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

Katz said: “He was sweating tremendously--it was just coming off his brow. It was incredible. . . . He was just staring at us. His eyes looked big. He never said a word.”

Whalen helped Wilson, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, to his feet, Katz said. Whalen and two other men then took Wilson back to the Omni Hotel, Katz said.

The Bengals’ Super Bowl headquarters was at the Omni, but the team moved to the Holiday Inn the night before the game.

According to Katz, he let Wyche into Wilson’s room at the Holiday Inn about 11 that night.

“Sam asked me to help him with the bed checks and asked to see Stanley’s room when we came to it,” Katz said. “He said, ‘I want to gather information, if there is any . . . . I have to make a report.’ ”

In the bathroom, Katz said, Wyche discovered several items.

“There was a dozen used matches on the tub ledge, a cigarette filter with no tobacco in it, little piles of ashes around the sink and a (plastic) sign that had some burn marks on it,” Katz said.

The crack form of cocaine is baked into rock-sized pellets and usually smoked.

Katz said that Wyche put the items in a shower cap. He said he did not know what Wyche did with the items.

Wilson, 27, a former University of Oklahoma star from Carson, was drafted by the Bengals in 1983. He has been previously suspended twice by the NFL for cocaine use. Bengal officials have said that the latest suspension will probably end Wilson’s NFL career.

Wilson’s lawyer, James Kidney, said he and Wilson’s agent, Reggie Turner of Los Angeles, will accompany the running back to a meeting with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle on Friday or early next week.