{"id":30458,"date":"2024-08-04T01:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T06:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30458"},"modified":"2024-08-04T02:55:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T07:55:55","slug":"kansas-man-sentenced-to-prison-for-stealing-bronze-jackie-robinson-statue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30458","title":{"rendered":"Kansas man sentenced to prison for stealing bronze Jackie Robinson statue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WICHITA, Kan. — The man who stole a bronze Jackie Robinson statue that was cut off at the ankles and found days later smoldering in a trash can in a city park in Kansas is going to spend about 15 years in prison, although most of that time is related to a burglary that happened a few days after the January statue heist.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A judge sentenced Ricky Alderete Friday on three different cases that he said in court stemmed from his addiction to fentanyl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The League 42 youth baseball league plans to unveil a replacement statue<\/a> of Robinson crafted from the original mold Monday at a park in Wichita, Kansas. The city was shocked when the statue was cut from its base in January, leaving only the statue’s feet behind. The league that primarily serves low-income youth is named after Robinson\u2019s<\/a> uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with whom he broke the major leagues\u2019 color barrier in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firefighters found burned remnants of the statue five days later<\/a> while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alderete pleaded guilty to the theft. He was sentenced to 18 months and ordered to pay $41,500 restitution for stealing the statue. He got the most time for an aggravated burglary that happened Feb. 1 that carried a sentence of 13.5 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI let fentanyl take over me and made a lot of poor decisions. I am not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anybody,\u201d he said in court Friday. \u201cI am embarrassed, I\u2019m ashamed. Whatever you do today I accept. I am ready for that. I believe I am where I am supposed to be right now because at the rate I am going, I might have been dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the original statue was stolen, donations to replace it rolled in, including $100,000 from Major League Baseball. Former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre and Cy Young award winner CC Sabathia are expected to attend Monday’s unveiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bronze cleats that were left behind when the original statue was stolen are now on display at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, paving the way for generations of Black American ballplayers. He is considered not only a sports legend but also a civil rights icon<\/a>. Robinson died in 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WICHITA, Kan. — The man who stole a bronze Jackie Robinson statue that was cut off at the ankles and found days later smoldering in a trash can in a city park in Kansas is going to spend about 15 years in prison, although most of that time is related to a burglary that happened a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[28716,5585],"class_list":["post-30458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-statues","tag-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30460,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30458\/revisions\/30460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}