Former Illinois basketball player Rich McBride was sentenced to a 24-month conditional discharge Tuesday after pleading guilty in March to a Sept. 29 charge of driving under the influence.
In addition to the two years, Champaign County Associate Judge Richard P. Klaus sentenced the 22-year-old senior from Springfield to 250 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.
McBride also will be required to take random drug and alcohol testing. McBride and his attorney Mark Lipton declined to comment.
“We are satisfied with the judge’s ruling,” Julia R. Rietz, Champaign County state’s attorney, said. “It is consistent with how we resolve many cases.”
McBride, who started all 33 games as a junior, was arrested in September and suspended for six games last season — two exhibition games and the first four of the regular season.
He returned to the lineup in November and was the team’s third-leading scorer at 10 points per game.
McBride also was suspended in 2003 for his involvement in an alleged burglary in which no charges were filed.
While on conditional discharge, McBride is not required to report to a probation officer but must complete his public service and pay his fine.
Unlike court supervision, the conviction will go on his record and his driver’s license is suspended for 18 months.
Lipton had asked the court for supervision so McBride could get his driver’s license back immediately. The attorney told Klaus that before being arrested, McBride was given a substance abuse evaluation at the urging of Illinois basketball coaches and was found to be a high risk. Lipton said that since his arrest, McBride had completed 75 hours of outpatient care and has attended Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. The arrest “turned on a light” for McBride, Lipton told the court.
McBride, who wrote a letter of apology in Illinois’ campus newspaper in April, is scheduled to graduate this month. The 6-foot-3-inch guard hopes to play basketball overseas.
Illinois athletes have been on the court docket with some regularity this school year. Basketball player Jamar Smith pleaded not guilty to felony charges of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a Feb. 12 accident. His case will be heard this month. Smith’s teammate, Brian Carlwell, suffered a severe concussion when the car Smith was driving skidded off a snow-slickened Champaign street and struck a tree.
According to the university police report, Smith, who suffered a minor concussion, drove the badly damaged car back to his apartment after the crash and left Carlwell inside.
The report said a female witness called 911 and when police arrived at the apartment complex, they found the unconscious Carlwell in the damaged car.
On Friday, former football players Jody Ellis and Derrick McPhearson will stand trial on four counts of residential burglary and two counts of theft of property as a result of being arrested in early March.
“Part of the purpose of determining a sentence is to send a message to prevent others from committing the same offense,” Rietz said. “That’s not to say my office or Judge Klaus were trying to use Rich McBride as an example because of his status as an athlete. This is a sentence that would be handed down in any other case with this fact situation, this level of blood alcohol, this type of substance abuse situation.
“This is a very appropriate sentence, given the facts.”
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rhanley@tribune.com
