Gilbert Arenas Won't Do Time on Gun Charge

Wizards guard draws 2 years' probation, 400 hours of community service

By Marie Morris, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 26, 2010 3:56 PM CDT

Copied

Gilbert Arenas Won't Do Time on Gun Charge — Suspended Washington Wizards basketball player Gilbert Arenas autographs the backpack of Meagan Tutt, 7, as he arrives at Superior Court for his sentencing hearing on gun possession in Washington, on Friday, March 26, 2010. Arenas pleaded guilty earlier this year to violating the city's gun laws by... (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Gilbert Arenas was sentenced to 18 months in jail today, but the judge immediately suspended the sentence and ordered the Washington Wizards guard to spend 2 years on probation and perform 400 hours of community service. Arenas, who pleaded guilty to bringing guns into the Wizards' locker room in a dispute with teammate Javaris Crittenton, will spend the first month of his sentence living in a halfway house. He and Crittenton are suspended from the NBA without pay through the end of the season.

"I am very sorry that all this happened," Arenas said in court. "Every day I wake up wishing it didn't." In declining to incarcerate Arenas, the DC Superior Court judge said, he weighed factors including the fact that the guns were unloaded and licensed in Virginia—thought not in DC—and Arenas' clean record, reports the Washington Post.
(More Gilbert Arenas stories.)

Report an error