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Players get jail time for card misuse
Posted: Friday February 11, 2000 04:38 PM
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) -- UC Santa Barbara basketball players Larry Bell and Eric Hare have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of using another student's phone card to make more than $3,000 worth of calls, and sentenced to 15-day jail terms. An additional charge of receiving stolen property -- relating to stolen bicycles found at their Isla Vista apartment -- was dismissed as part of a plea bargain between the district attorney's office and defense lawyer Bill Duval. Under the agreement announced Thursday, Superior Court Judge Harry Loberg sentenced Bell and Hare to 15-day terms in the county jail, to be served before July 1, and placed them on probation for three years. The two also were fined $1,125 apiece and ordered to jointly pay restitution that will total about $3,000, attorneys said. Bell, 22, is a senior, and Hare, 20, was a freshman before transferring last month to the University of Montana. Neither has any prior criminal record. After their arrests Nov. 10, both were suspended for eight weeks from the UCSB basketball team because of the pending criminal charges. Their suspensions were lifted Jan. 4 by UCSB athletic director Gary Cunningham. Bell has played well since returning, while Hare never rejoined the team. They were arrested after a student discovered her telephone card was missing and she had been billed for thousands of dollars worth of calls she didn't make, UCSB police said. Bell told police he found the phone card when he and his roommates moved into an apartment, and he allegedly then gave the number to Hare, and perhaps others, to use. According to Duval, the stolen-property charge was dismissed because of a lack of evidence, but deputy district attorney Paula Bouckaert said it was simply "part of the plea bargain."
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