WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A man charged in the death of a Winston-Salem State University football player in 2018 was sentenced to prison on Thursday, a Forsyth County District Court clerk confirmed.

Jakier Shanique Austin was arrested on April 11, 2018, in connection with the Jan. 20, 2018, shooting of 21-year-old Najee Ali Baker at The Barn, an event center on Wake Forest University’s campus.

Austin was charged with murder, possession of a stolen firearm and carrying a concealed gun.

Police said Austin shot Baker after an argument. Baker died from his injuries at a local hospital.

On Thursday, Austin pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 64-89 months in prison.

Coming out of college at Missouri, Keith Wright was a promising talent destined for NFL success. In 2003, Wright completed his lifelong dream of becoming a professional football player when he was drafted by the Houston Texans. However, Wright didn’t quite pan out in the NFL. He lasted just four years in the league, and he went down a dark path in retirement. Wright went on to commit a series of robberies and assaults that landed him a 234-year prison sentence. It’s safe to say he won’t be getting out at any point in this lifetime.

Keith Wright had a short-lived NFL career

Wright was an effective pass rusher and run stuffer on Missouri’s defensive line in the early 2000s. He recorded 68 tackles in his first year with the Tigers and amped it up to 92 tackles in his second year. Between 2001 and 2002, Wright switched from defensive end to defensive tackle, and it paid dividends.

Wright was selected by the Texans in the sixth round of the 2003 NFL draft. His success at Missouri didn’t translate to the NFL, though. Wright was sent to the Texans’ practice squad to start the season, and he was picked up by the Indianapolis Colts shortly after.

From there, Wright jumped to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2004. He spent one season with the Bucs before he was released in 2005. The Arizona Cardinals then signed Wright to a one-year contract, but he was released less than a month later.

Wright finished his career with stints with the Buccaneers again and the Detroit Lions. He barely made an impact on the field in four years, and he was out of the league by 2006.

Keith Wright committed 19 felonies by the time he was 32

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After his NFL career ended, Wright turned to a life of crime. In 2011 alone, Wright committed three home invasions around the Sacramento area where he lived at the time. During one of the home invasions, Wright sexually assaulted a woman and forced her to take money out of an ATM.

Wright racked up 19 felony charges in his second life. Along with home invasion, Wright was charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, false imprisonment, forcible oral copulation, and first-degree burglary.

In 2012, Wright was sentenced to 234 years and 8 months in prison. He was just 32 years old at the time.

Wright’s 234-year prison sentence is the longest in sports history

NEW HAVEN-A former Bassick High basketball player who dreamed of going to college was sentenced Monday to 37 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of distributing fentanyl and crack cocaine.

Once Kentwan “Thomas” Robinson, 27, formerly of Clark Street, Ansonia and various housing projects in Bridgeport completes his prison term he will spend the next three years being supervised by the U.S. Probation Department according to the sentence imposed by Senior U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton.

Robinson has prior convictions for third-degree larceny, possession of narcotics and possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute dating back to 2012 and has served prison time, according to an affidavit submitted by Bridgeport Police Officer Christopher Martin, who is a member of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Investigators used a confidential informant to purchase drugs from Robinson in Bridgeport and Ansonia in 2018 and early in 2019. They seized eight grams of fentanyl, drug paraphernalia, cash and a magazine for a Glock during a search of his Clark Street apartment last year.

Additionally Robinson was arrested by Ohio authorities on Dec. 28, 2018 following a high speed chase in which he allegedly crashed the car and attempted to flee, according to federal court documents. Ohio State Highway Patrol officers found a Glock 9mm pistol with a high capacity magazine and a device enabling it to convert to rapid fire.

“The defendant’s poor judgment and disrespect for law and the legal system is perfectly exemplified in this case, where Robinson continued to distribute heroin and to sell gun converter switches while on bond release in the Ohio felony proceeding,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Vizcarrondo told Arterton. “…The true nature of his character was demonstrated when he chose to store and package fentanyl in the home where his five-year-old daughter lives. Let that stand in stark contrast to his protestations of goodness.”

However Assistant U.S. Public Defender Allison Murray Near told a different story. She said Robinson’s life took a turn for the worse just days after he graduated from Bassick High School when his father, Daron Green, was murdered and his mother was dealing with breast cancer. His plans to attend Housatonic Community College and then Southern Connecticut State University were derailed.

Robinson has been detained without bond since his Feb. 6, 2019 arrest in Ansonia.

On July 31, 2019 he pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of distribution of fentanyl, one count of distribution of fentanyl and crack cocaine base and one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.

This investigation was handled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Bridgeport High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force and the Bridgeport Police Department. The Task Force includes personnel from the DEA, Connecticut State Police and Norwalk, Stamford, Stratford, Milford, Bridgeport and Trumbull Police Departments.

Former Texas Christian University standout and NFL quarterback Trevone Boykin is headed to prison, sentenced to three years behind bars after pleading guilty to four charges Wednesday.

In December 2019 Boykin was arrested on two misdemeanor theft charges from October, one where he was accused of duping at least two people into paying him for collegiate memorabilia he’d posted for sale on Instagram and then not delivering the merchandise and then another for staying in a hotel in Arlington where he left without paying the bill.

The assault and tampering charges are related to a family violence case from the year before that cost him his job with the Seattle Seahawks. In that case, Boykin was formally charged in September 2018 with aggravated assault for allegedly attacking his girlfriend and breaking her jaw in his home in March of that year.

Boykin was on the Seahawks practice roster at the time but was cut after the alleged assault was reported. He released a statement then saying the story was false and that he wasn’t involved in the altercation.

On Wednesday, Boykin pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to three years in prison for the felonies and 180 days in the Tarrant County Jail on the misdemeanor theft cases.

“Mr. Boykin has failed to take responsibility for any of his assaultive and criminal behavior up until this point. The victim in this case sustained a long-standing relationship of abuse by Mr. Boykin and, along with our office, feels his prison sentence is vindication for what she endured and the consequences he was able to avoid in the past because of his ability on the football field,” said prosecutor Allena Bangs.

It is not yet clear if Boykin will serve the sentences concurrently or consecutively.

Boykin was arrested in 2017 in Dallas on misdemeanor charges of public intoxication and marijuana possession after he was riding in a car where the driver crashed, though the case was later dismissed. In 2016, he pleaded no contest to resisting arrest after originally facing a felony charge of assaulting an officer, stemming from an incident shortly before the 2015 Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. He was suspended for that bowl game and was sentenced to a year of deferred adjudication probation.

In 2014 Boykin was a finalist for a number of honors including the Heisman, O’Brien, Manning, Unitas and Walter Camp awards and trophies. Despite that, he was not selected in the 2016 NFL Draft and later signed with the Seahawks that summer. He went on to play in five games that season before being bumped to the practice squad in 2017.

WEST JORDAN — A former Real Salt Lake player accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl has been sentenced to jail.

A judge ordered Ricardo Velazco, 24, to serve 45 days in jail and two years probation on Thursday, suspending a $2,500 fine and a yearlong jail sentence.

In November, Velazco pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of sexual battery, a class A misdemeanor, in 3rd District Court. He was originally charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Charging documents allege that Velazco, who was 23 at the time, had sex with the teen in Draper on May 20.

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His attorney, Greg Skordas, has said Velazco met the girl in a bar, was led to believe she was 18 years old and was upset when he learned she was not of age.

Velazco was suspended from the team and from Major League Soccer when he was charged in August. RSL has said further decisions about his status with the team would be made after the case is adjudicated.

He was not listed on the roster on RSL’s website as of Monday but appeared on that of El Salvador’s Isidro Metapán.

Velazco, of Casa Grande, Arizona, signed with RSL on Sept. 6, 2016, after two seasons with the Real Monarchs.

Ronald Gasser, in a booking photo released by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, was sentenced on Thursday to 30 years in prison for shooting dead ex-NFL player Joe McKnight in 2016.

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Ronald Gasser, in a booking photo released by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, was sentenced on Thursday to 30 years in prison for shooting dead ex-NFL player Joe McKnight in 2016.

AP

A man convicted of manslaughter in the 2016 shooting death of former NFL running back Joe McKnight in what prosecutors and witnesses described as a road rage incident, was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison.

“Let this be a cautionary tale to all drivers who rage behind the wheel of their car at other drivers,” Jefferson Parish District Judge Ellen Kovach said at Ronald Gasser’s sentencing, according to NOLA.com. Tragedy could have been avoided, Kovach said, if either man “had the good sense, the courage and the wisdom to simply disengage.”

The men did not know each other but on Dec. 1, 2016, their paths crossed when McKnight, 28, reportedly cut off Gasser, now 56, on a New Orleans bridge, angering him, as Tegan Wendland of WWNO reported. Then in what prosecutors described as a tit-for-tat pursuit of several miles, each man periodically pulled up beside the other and shouted obscenities.

They pulled over about five miles away at a busy intersection just outside the city and argued. Then Gasser, seated behind the wheel of his vehicle, shot McKnight — who was standing outside unarmed — three times, killing him.

That Gasser shot McKnight dead was not in question, he remained at the scene and confessed to police. But Gasser said it was self-defense.

His attorneys argued at trial that their client committed justifiable homicide under the state’s Castle Doctrine, because Gasser remained in his vehicle — his own property — as McKnight lunged into the vehicle to attack, reports NOLA.com.

Yet prosecutors said forensic evidence showed McKnight was never as close as Gasser claimed. They said while McKnight did have a hand on Gasser’s open passenger side window, his clothes showed no sign of gun powder residue and his wounds were not consistent with being shot at close range, according to NOLA.com.

Gasser was not arrested until nearly a week after the shooting.

As WWNO’s Tegan Wendland reported at the time, “Deputies brought him in, questioned him for hours and then released him. … Protesters took to the streets, calling the sheriff’s department racist for releasing the white man after the death of an unarmed black man.”

Onetime New York Jets running back Joe McKnight photographed in 2013. The man convicted in his death was sentenced to three decades in prison on Thursday.

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Onetime New York Jets running back Joe McKnight photographed in 2013. The man convicted in his death was sentenced to three decades in prison on Thursday.

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Gasser was charged with second-degree murder but in January a jury found him guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter.

At his sentencing hearing Thursday, McKnight’s mother, Jennifer, gave tearful testimony, telling Gasser, “You didn’t have to do that,” reports The Associated Press.

McKnight played three seasons with the New York Jets until 2012 and then briefly with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2014, until he tore his Achilles tendon.

Gasser’s attorneys are seeking a new trial.

Professional football player Demetrius Harris is the latest high-profile victim in America’s racially charged and backwards war on weed.

According to initial reports from TMZ and a follow-up from the Kansas City Star, Harris was arrested in August 2017 after a routine traffic stop in Bates County, Mississippi turned up 35 grams of marijuana and an unnamed piece of drug paraphernalia. Harris, a passenger in the car, was initially charged with felony marijuana possession and a misdemeanor for the paraphernalia. Eventually, in return for having the cannabis charge reduced to a misdemeanor, Harris was persuaded to plead guilty to both crimes.

Since Mississippi is one of America’s remaining states with hardline reefer madness drug laws still on the books, Harris was called back to the Magnolia State last week for a sentencing hearing, where a Bates County judge sentenced the professional football player to two days in jail, two years of probation, and 80 days of community service. Additionally, as cannabis is still on the NFL’s banned substances list, Harris will be required to enter the league’s substance abuse program.

Even though Harris was taken into custody at the time of the arrest last year, he was not awarded time served. Therefore, the athlete entered a Bates County jail on March 9th, and has since completed the first part of his punishment.

And while two days in jail might seem like a minor sentence, even for possession of a plant that is entirely legal in nine states and Washington D.C., the additional years of probation added to Harris’ time behind bars highlights the unnecessary stranglehold that the criminal justice system has on minor convicts, particularly people of color.

In a new investigation by Rolling Stone into the continued legal troubles of Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill, who has been in and out of jail on probation violations that stem from a 2008 weapons charge, reporter Paul Solotaroff details how an initially minor charge can lead to a life of court dates and criminal accusations, even for lauded celebrities.

“Here is the trap of our post-conviction system: Defendants, even famous ones, live at the mercy of their judge and probation officer,” Solotaroff details. “It’s one thing to toe the line while holding a nine-to-five. But to live a spotless life while chasing the prize in hip-hop? Now, there’s a manual someone needs to write.”

Similarly, Harris’ life as a professional football player, including traveling out of state to away games, potential media appearances and endorsement meetings, is not conducive to the life of a probationer, despite his undeniably positive societal role as an athlete. Like Meek Mill, Harris will be liable to be sent back to jail for any number of minor infractions, including missteps as small as scheduling conflicts — all for being charged with a bag of weed that could have been purchased legally at a store in any number of states.

Harris will also need to resolve the issue with the NFL, a notoriously anti-cannabis employer, despite the league’s highly publicized love affair with painkillers. Harris is on the last year of his current contract with the Chiefs, and will need to sell himself in free agency next offseason, a task that could prove incredibly hard with a criminal conviction shadowing him at every potential meeting.

Harris is just one of nearly a million people per year who are arrested for nonviolent cannabis crimes in the U.S. Until cannabis reform is adopted on a national scale, Americans, and especially people of color, will continue to be persecuted and subsequently roped into a system that can hold one down for years.

As of press time, the Kansas City Chiefs, Harris’ current team, have not released a comment concerning the tight end’s sentence.

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FULTON COUNTY, Ind. (WNDU) Former Notre Dame football player Kevin Stepherson was sentenced Tuesday to 180 days in Fulton County Jail stemming from his marijuana arrest in August 2016.

He was charged with violating probation after he failed a drug test in December.

Stepherson has spent the last 43 days in jail. With good behavior and time served, he’ll be released in 47 days.

Stepherson still faces charges in Marshall and St. Joseph counties, and he’s no longer enrolled at Notre Dame.

Stepherson was originally arrested for possession of marijuana in August of 2016 when he and four other teammates were pulled over in Fulton County. Stepherson entered a plea to have his charges removed as long as he could stay out of trouble for one year. The court accepted that plea for what’s known as a conditional discharge.

But the former Irish wide receiver, who was kicked off the football team in January, has not stayed out of trouble.

On December 14, Stepherson was pulled over in Marshall County. He was later charged with possession of marijuana, speeding, and no valid driver’s license. The next day, he was arrested for shoplifting a pair of sweatpants from Macy’s at the University Park Mall in Mishawaka. He was picked up walking out of the store allegedly wearing a stolen $59 pair of Nautica sweatpants he did not purchase. He’s been charged with conversion, a class A misdemeanor, from this incident. Both of those incidents were first reported by WNDU.

In late January, Stepherson was arrested again for possession of marijuana, this time in Whitley County.

He still faces charges for possession of marijuana in Marshall and Whitley counties as well as the theft charge out of St. Joseph County.

Despite the August arrest last year, Stepherson did not sit out a single game in 2016. He finished 2nd on the team in receiving.

While it was never acknowledged by Notre Dame, Stepherson was suspended for the first four games of 2017 for what sources tell NewsCenter 16 was a violation of team rules. He eventually returned to action and became one of Notre Dame’s most reliable wide receivers, catching a team high five touchdowns during the most recent football season. Stepherson started three games, catching 19 total passes for 359 yards.

A Laurel man charged with two armed robberies in late 2014 settled his final case in Laurel Circuit Court last week.

Chad Michael Merida, 25, was set for a pretrial conference before Circuit Judge Greg Lay on Jan. 2 and a jury trial on Jan. 18.

Instead, Merida entered a guilty plea to first-degree robbery and waived a formal sentencing hearing later on, opting to have his sentence imposed immediately during that hearing on Jan. 2.

Merida will now serve 11 years for the October 25 robbery of the Saddlebrook  Dollar General Store in which he reportedly threatened store staff with “the use of physical force while armed with a gun and in the course of committing a theft.”

Merida was indicted on that charge in Dec. 2014 as well as another charge in which he robbed the Game Stop store in London. He pled to that charge in early October and received an 11-year sentence.

The court document for the Dollar Store robbery does not indicate whether the two sentences will run at the same time or if Merida will serve one sentence after the other is completed.

The two robberies in London were among a string of armed robberies in which Merida was eventually charged. Those included businesses in Georgia and Florida, for which Merida pled guilty to 11 robberies in Sept. 2015. His official charges under federal statutes were interference with commerce by robbery, according to an announcement released by U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley in Tampa, Florida, after his plea agreement there.

The route that led Merida to a life of crime is not known, although he enjoyed success as a football player at both South Laurel High School and as a walk-on for the University of Kentucky football team in 2012.

Records from the Laurel County Correctional Center’s website indicates that Merida was brought to the London jail on Nov. 3 and remains incarcerated there.

njohnson@sentinel-echo.com

A Laurel man charged with two armed robberies in late 2014 settled his final case in Laurel Circuit Court last week.

Chad Michael Merida, 25, was set for a pretrial conference before Circuit Judge Greg Lay on Jan. 2 and a jury trial on Jan. 18.

Instead, Merida entered a guilty plea to first-degree robbery and waived a formal sentencing hearing later on, opting to have his sentence imposed immediately during that hearing on Jan. 2.

Merida will now serve 11 years for the October 25 robbery of the Saddlebrook  Dollar General Store in which he reportedly threatened store staff with “the use of physical force while armed with a gun and in the course of committing a theft.”

Merida was indicted on that charge in Dec. 2014 as well as another charge in which he robbed the Game Stop store in London. He pled to that charge in early October and received an 11-year sentence.

The court document for the Dollar Store robbery does not indicate whether the two sentences will run at the same time or if Merida will serve one sentence after the other is completed.

The two robberies in London were among a string of armed robberies in which Merida was eventually charged. Those included businesses in Georgia and Florida, for which Merida pled guilty to 11 robberies in Sept. 2015. His official charges under federal statutes were interference with commerce by robbery, according to an announcement released by U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley in Tampa, Florida, after his plea agreement there.

The route that led Merida to a life of crime is not known, although he enjoyed success as a football player at both South Laurel High School and as a walk-on for the University of Kentucky football team in 2012.

Records from the Laurel County Correctional Center’s website indicates that Merida was brought to the London jail on Nov. 3 and remains incarcerated there.

njohnson@sentinel-echo.com