ghostwriters just like using spoofs in order to make the situations they report look more serious than actuality, only re s get duped and clearly the OP is one typical
Arenas a lucky man to beat gun rap
By Tim Dahlberg
Gilbert Arenas is a lucky man.
Lucky he’s spending a few days in a halfway house instead of a few years in a prison. Lucky he plays in a league that guarantees contracts.
Lucky he didn’t put bullets in the guns he brought to work to show a teammate he meant business.
Lucky that everyone understands he’s just a fun-loving guy.
Plaxico Burress can only wish he was so lucky. Not only did he shoot himself, but got locked up because of it. There’s no job guarantee when he gets out, no teams lining up to give him his millions.
Super Bowl hero one day, just another number in the New York prison system the next.
Yes, Gilbert Arenas is lucky, something the former Agent Zero surely understands even if he was having a little trouble in court comprehending the idea of a halfway house. Having to sleep in less than luxurious conditions for 30 days isn’t so bad when the alternative was being sent away to prison like so many others.
Arenas was properly contrite when he stood Friday before a Washington judge to learn his fate. There was no joking around, just an apology served up to assure the judge he had learned his lesson.
“Every day, I wake up wishing it did not happen,” Arenas said.
So, presumably, does Burress. The only difference is he wakes up in a prison cell.
The cases differ, of course, but they do have a common theme. Both involve star athletes so arrogantly caught up in the gun culture that is pervasive in professional sports that they thought gun laws didn’t apply to them.
At least Burress was quick to realize his situation was serious. Shooting yourself in your leg will do that.
Arenas was still treating it all as a big joke until the time NBA commissioner David Stern assured him it was no laughing matter.
The apologists for Arenas will claim that he is paying a heavy price despite getting no prison time. He’s losing more than $7 million in salary while under suspension, and his lawyers say he also lost a sponsorship deal with Adidas that will cost him at least $10 million.
It’s all relative, though, because Arenas still has a big portion of his $111 million contract due him and it’s all guaranteed. There has been speculation the Wizards might try to void the contract because of his felony conviction, but the consensus seems to be that it would be tough to do.
Indeed, coach Flip Saunders talked as if he was expecting Arenas back for next season.
“He’ll probably start doing some stuff come summer time that he needs to from an in-shape standpoint,” Saunders said.
For that, Arenas can be thankful for good lawyers. His were so good that he escaped prison time despite having a prior gun conviction and despite lying repeatedly about bringing four guns into the team locker room and setting them near Javaris Crittenton’s locker with a sign telling him to “PICK 1.”
“If any other individual—without the fame, power, and the wealth of this defendant—brought four firearms into Washington, D.C., for the purpose of a similar confrontation, fabricated a story to conceal that confrontation, provided convenient explanations in an attempt to mitigate his conduct that were proved false, joked about the incident to large groups, and stated that he did nothing wrong and felt no remorse, the government would seek their incarceration, and the Court would almost certainly give it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh wrote in asking for prison time.
Imagine any other person keeping their job, too, after bringing guns to work and offering them to a fellow employee to settle a dispute, say, over who gets the corner cubicle.
A more fitting sentence might have been a few months in jail, if only to demonstrate that guns are no joking matter. A more fitting response from Stern might have been to kick Arenas out of the league for good.
Instead, Arenas will spend a few nights at a halfway house. He’ll do a few hours of community work. Eventually he’ll get on with playing in the NBA once again.
The judge bought the argument that the good things Arenas has done with charity work mitigate the bad. He believed the defense portrayal of Arenas as being genuinely remorseful.
We can only hope it’s true. Right now the only thing we really know about Arenas is that he’s one lucky man.
And that’s no joke.
Grunfeld: Arenas will be a Wizard next season
A day after Gilbert Arenas was sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house for bringing guns into the locker room, Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld reaffirmed that the All-Star guard will be back with Washington next season.
Grunfeld told reporters before the team’s game against Utah on Saturday that the Wizards did not plan to void Arenas’ contract.
Grunfeld says, “I think people forget that he’s still one of the best players in this league.”
Arenas avoided jail time for the offense, instead receiving a sentence that also includes two years of probation and 400 hours of community service.
Grunfeld says he has not talked to Arenas recently, although he spoke to Arenas’ father.
Washington has lost 14 straight games.
This worthless piece of should do time in jail and should be blackballed from ever being on an nba team again
him and dumbasses who try to prove their mettle by bringing guns, loaded or not, into basketball arena locker rooms
Im beginning to think that the re ed guy on your avatar is actually you.
sup head.
Arenas is an innocent man who had no victim and no criminal intent. We live in a police state.
The tricks of Gilbert Arenas
By Henry Abbott
TrueHoop
Several people saw Gilbert Arenas with guns in the Wizards' locker room last December.
In the days and hours to follow, hard questions were asked. It would have been a great time for Arenas to "come clean" about his dispute with teammate Javaris Crittenton. Lawyers insist that doing so would been a good way to reduce his sentence.
A text message from Arenas, intended for Crittenton, apparently explaining a cover story.
According to prosecutors armed with strong research -- including testimony from many eye witnesses -- Arenas chose a far trickier tactic:
* He told team officials that he brought the guns to the arena to get them away from his family, even on the same day he told a teammate to take a case holding the guns and put it in his car, which he would presumably drive home ... to his family.
* That same day he told team officials a second version of events: That he brought the guns to the arena to sell them to a teammate.
* Arenas told officials that he thought guns were allowed in the locker room -- even though a month before he had been part of a mandatory team meeting which made clear to everybody else in the room that they most certainly were not.
* In a decisive indictment of Arenas' regard for the judicial proces and the truth, Arenas sent Javaris Crittenton specific instructions about the story he should tell officials (in fairness to Arenas, this story exonerated Crittenton).
* Arenas changed his story several times about when he brought the guns to the locker room, saying first that he brought them all to the arena weeks before, and then later releasing a statement saying in which he brought at least one on the day of the confrontation -- a version that hurts his case that the incident was meaningless.
* After denying publicly that there had been a confrontation of any kind, Arenas signed a guilty plea in which he admits there was one.
* Arenas released public statements expressing remorse, which he has contradicted by telling reporters that he didn't do anything wrong, and that "if I really did something wrong, it would bother me."
What's particularly troubling about all that story-changing is how it points so strongly to a worldview where the criminal justice system is some childish game -- The truth be damned, just make up something to keep yourself out of trouble. It's almost like he's trying to cheat at some video game, which is also something he has confessed to.
Doesn't all that just seem incredibly naive? You can't beat the law like that, can you? He should be embarrassed to have even tried.
But before we get to lecturing Arenas too harshly on not respecting the legal system, or the rule of law, let's consider the biggest, strongest and likely most effective of his varied attempts to avoid harsh punishment. Like rich people in jams everywhere, he hired a very powerful attorney.
Kenneth Wainstein is not just a good lawyer. He has his fingers on many of the buttons that matter in Washington D.C.'s legal system. Most importantly for this case, he recently oversaw the office prosecuting Arenas in this very matter. From 2004-2006, Wainstein was U.S. attorney in the same district. He has also directed the executive office of U.S. attorneys, worked for the F.B.I., founded an important new national security division at the Justice Department. He even advised President George W. Bush on homeland security.
In arguing for jail time for Arenas, assistant U.S. attorney Chris Kavanaugh (who joined the office in 2007, after Wainstein had moved on) wrote that a sentence without jail time would send a bad message, built on the idea that "With enough money, fame, and the right representation, you can avoid paying the price that others in this city would certainly pay in these cir stances."
Kavanaugh was worried that the right attorney might get someone special treatment from the legal system. Now that Arenas has received just about the lightest sentence anyone imagined for him -- 30 days in a halfway house, two years' probation, 400 hours community service and a $5,000 fine -- it's hard not to think that the situation Kavanaugh proposed has come to pass.
Hiring an attorney like Wainstein was certainly not overtly devious, like some of the other things Arenas has done. But it was certainly clever. Who could argue that a special kind of lawyer was essential to keeping him out of jail?
Despite ample evidence Arenas made many crucial errors in the aftermath of the gun incident, in the final analysis, it's hard to imagine he could have gotten a better result. That's a pretty good trick.
All he got was a slap on the wrist, can't believe he didn't get jail-time. I was personally hoping he got kicked out of the league, his contract voided, and some jail time.
This should be a classic thread because of Lefty's "Agent Orange" joke
great in one liner
somebody needs to make a thread with all of my man Lefty's best one liners..great thread idea IMO..
I agreeThis should be a classic thread because of Lefty's "Agent Orange" joke
great in one liner
um whats the chances of him smuggling in a gun up his ass to protect himself inside
Protect himself from what? The jailtime he didn't get sentenced back in March?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
