A man who stole and destroyed a statue of Jackie Robinson that stood outside a youth baseball field in Wichita, Kan., was sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison on theft and other charges on Friday.
The man, Ricky Alderete, 45, is the only person who has been arrested in the theft, which occurred in January, though investigators said more people were involved.
Mr. Alderete, who had a criminal record for drug charges before the statue theft and had spent time in prison, was charged in February with felony theft, aggravated criminal damage to property and giving false information in connection with the crime.
Photographs of the statue’s bronze feet, the only part of the beloved baseball player’s likeness that was left behind, gained international attention. There were concerns that the statue’s destruction had been a hate-motivated crime, but investigators said in February that there was no evidence to support this.
“Instead, we believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal,” Lt. Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department said at the time.
Surveillance video footage from early on the morning of Jan. 25 showed two figures severing the statue with a concrete saw outside McAdams Park in Wichita and then placing it in the bed of a truck that was eventually linked to Mr. Alderete.
A city worker found pieces of the statue in a burning trash can. The statue was deemed damaged beyond repair.
Text messages reviewed by investigators showed Mr. Alderete telling a friend about a stolen chunk of bronze weighing 250 to 350 pounds, according to court records.
“I am on my way to the scrap yard now so that we can process the scrap and get paid,” a line from Mr. Alderete’s messages read, according to the records.
During an interview with investigators, Mr. Alderete admitted to cutting the statue, but he said that he had been hired to do it by another person, according to court records. He was never paid, investigators wrote.
More than one person was discovered to be involved in the attempted sale of the statue, according to court records.
On Friday, Mr. Alderete was sentenced to 162 months in prison for aggravated burglary and 18 months in prison for aggravated criminal damage to property, said Jorge M. De Hoyos, an assistant public defender representing Mr. Alderete. The sentences will run consecutively.
The aggravated burglary charge stems from an episode on Feb. 1, when Mr. Alderete fled the police when they thought he was involved with the statue theft, Mr. De Hoyos said.
Mr. Alderete broke into a home and told the person inside that he was running from the police, according to court documents. Mr. Alderete fell asleep, the person inside the home got out and the police arrested Mr. Alderete.
He was also sentenced to prison for charges in a separate case, in which he stole and pawned a cellphone in October 2022. Sentences from this case and other prison sentences related to the statue theft will run concurrently.
Mr. Alderete was also ordered to pay $41,500 to League 42, a nonprofit youth baseball league that installed the statue outside the field where it plays.
Mr. De Hoyos had sought a 46-month sentence for Mr. Alderete, along with mandatory inpatient addiction treatment.
“I don’t think for a second that a 60-year-old Ricky Alderete is made better by 15 years in prison,” Mr. De Hoyos said on Sunday.
In court documents, Mr. De Hoyos recounted Mr. Alderete’s history of opiate addiction, which included spells of sobriety, relapse and incarceration since the 1990s.
Mr. Alderete started having a problem with drugs again in 2020 after he was laid off and unable to find work in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to court documents. Mr. Alderete’s heroin use damaged his relationship with his family, and he began living in a homeless encampment in 2022.
In July, Mr. Alderete spoke for “an hour or two” with League 42’s founder, Bob Lutz, in a meeting they had both requested, according to court documents. Mr. Lutz also invited Mr. Alderete’s wife and children to a meeting with League 42 and said Mr. Alderete’s son and daughter could have a spot in the youth baseball league.
“We’re sorry to see it didn’t pay dividends with the court, with the sentence, but very grateful that Bob and Ricky made a peace that I haven’t accomplished on any other case,” Mr. De Hoyos said.
“We are pleased that the judge followed the state’s recommendation and feel like the appropriate sentence was imposed,” the Sedgwick County district attorney, Marc Bennett, said on Monday.
The life-size bronze statue of Robinson, who integrated Major League Baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, was valued at $75,000, according to League 42.
After the theft, an online fund-raiser to support League 42 raised nearly $200,000. M.L.B. also donated $100,000 to the nonprofit. League 42 announced a plan to unveil a new statue on Monday.
“It is a strong symbol of everything we stand for and try to teach our 600-plus children,” Mr. Lutz said. “We wish Mr. Alderete’s family the best and will be here for them in any way possible.”
The post Kansas Man Who Stole Jackie Robinson Statue Is Sentenced to Prison appeared first on New York Times.
