A man who stole a bronze statue of Jackie Robinson that was cut off at the ankles and found days later on fire in a trash can in a Kansas park will spend about 15 years in prison, though most of that sentence is related to a burglary a few days after the January statue heist.
A judge sentenced Ricky Alderete on Friday in three different cases he said in court stemmed from his addiction to fentanyl.
The League 42 youth baseball league plans to unveil a replacement statue of Robinson, crafted from the original mold, on Monday, at a park in Wichita, Kansas.
The league, which primarily serves low-income youth, is named after Robinson’s uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with whom he broke the major leagues’ color barrier in 1947.
Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before joining the Dodgers, paving the way for generations of Black American ballplayers.
Considered not only a sports legend but also a civil rights icon, he died in 1972.
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The city was shocked when the statue was cut from its base in January, leaving only the feet.
Firefighters found burned remnants of the statue five days later while responding to a trash can fire at another park about seven miles away.
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 carried a sentence of 13 and a half years in prison.
“I let fentanyl take over me and made a lot of poor decisions,” he said in court. “I am not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anybody. I am embarrassed, I’m 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.”
After the statue was stolen, donations to replace it rolled in, including $100,000 from Major League Baseball. The former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre and CC Sabathia, a Cy Young award-winning pitcher, are expected to attend the unveiling.
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.
