SALON

Tuesday, Mar 6, 2012 10:45 AM UTC

Lenny Dykstra Gets 3 Years In Calif. Prison

By

Topics: From the Wires,

SAN FERNANDO, Calif. (AP) — Disgraced ex-New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra on Monday was sentenced to three years in a California state prison after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ulfig sentenced Dykstra after refusing to allow him to withdraw his plea and said the scam to lease high-end automobiles from dealerships by providing fraudulent information and claiming credit through a phony business showed sophistication and extensive planning.

“He obviously didn’t have the money to get the vehicles,” Ulfig said. “His conduct was indeed criminal.”

Dykstra, 49, has had a series of recent legal troubles and the prison sentence is part of a post-career downward spiral for the stocky slugger known as “Nails” that has included a stint at a sober living facility.

In a rambling and impassioned plea for probation, Dykstra said he has tried to make amends for his past transgressions and said he would be cleared of any wrongdoing had his motion to withdraw his plea been granted.

“I’m doing everything in my power to be a better person,” he said.

Dykstra, wearing a gray suit with a blue shirt, was immediately remanded to custody as he walked into the court’s back room, hands in his pockets. Dykstra has earned nearly a year’s worth of credit toward his sentence for time already served.

Following the hearing, defense attorney Andrew Flier said Dykstra was singled out because he’s a celebrity.

“No way this wasn’t a probationary case,” Flier said. “To give him state prison is outrageous. I find it disgusting.”

Dykstra initially pleaded not guilty to 25 counts after police arrested him and found cocaine, Ecstasy and synthetic human growth hormone at his Los Angeles home last April. He changed his plea in October to no contest and in exchange prosecutors dropped 21 counts.

Prosecutors said Dykstra and his accountant, Robert Hymers, 27, provided information at two dealerships from a man they claimed was a co-signer but who had not authorized his name to be used. The leases were not approved.

However, at another auto dealer, Dykstra, Hymers and Christopher Gavanis, 30, a friend of Dykstra’s, were able to drive off with three cars by providing fraudulent information to the dealer. Hymers and Gavanis have entered no contest pleas as well and are awaiting sentencing.

Ulfig noted Dykstra wasn’t dissuaded the first two times with the scam and “hit a home run” the third time. Those cars, Flier argued, were later returned and only depreciated in value.

In arguing for the maximum four-year sentence, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Karkanen said Dykstra has used his charm and celebrity status to get what he wants and has never been accountable for his actions.

“I’m glad Lenny Dykstra has been held responsible for his behavior,” Karkanen said outside of court. “This is a first for him.”

Dykstra still faces federal bankruptcy charges and is scheduled to stand trial this summer. He filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets. Federal prosecutors said that after filing, Dykstra hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from the $18.5 million mansion without permission of a bankruptcy trustee.

Dykstra, who spent his 12-year career with the Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, also has pleaded not guilty to indecent exposure charges for allegedly exposing himself to women he met on Craigslist.

Dykstra said he didn’t deserve to be put in jail on trumped-up charges and said he wasn’t able to go to the funeral of his mother who died while he was incarcerated awaiting trial. He noted that he chose to go into a drug rehab center, volunteers his time with a college baseball team and has paid nearly $20 million in taxes.

“I do have remorse for some of the things I’ve done,” he said. “But because I wasn’t a perfect person am I a criminal? Everyone wants to make me out to be a monster.”

More Greg Risling.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations