Plaxico Burress is going to jail.
The ex-New York Giant wide re ceiver and hero of Super Bowl XLII struck a deal Thursday that will put him behind bars for at least 20 months.
The sentence is appropriate: Burress brought an unlicensed, loaded gun to a nightclub. The gun slipped, and a bullet hit Burress in the leg. That no one else was injured was no thanks to him.
So good for Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, who nixed a slap-on-the-wrist plea bargain.
Alas, the DA’s decision not to pursue charges against New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center and ER attendant Dr. Josyann Abisaab, who treated Burress, is troubling.
The law clearly requires a hospital to report gunshot wounds. But Morgenthau called the failure to do so “more a screwup than a coverup.” Oh, really?
Abisaab admitted Burress under a fake name, apparently knowing full well who he was — and then failed to report the incident, despite the law.
Even Morgenthau, in December, seemed to understand that no one should be shielded from the law: “It’s a priority matter to get to the bottom of how this was not reported,” he said.
His view today? “It was . . . decided that no one [at the hospital] possessed criminal liability. And the hospital, he said, “has pledged a tightening of procedures.”
In the Burress case, Morgenthau’s one for two.