Kansas man sentenced to prison for stealing bronze Jackie Robinson statue
A bronze statue of legendary baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson was stolen from a park in Wichita, Kan., during the early morning hours of Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. The statue, valued at $75,000, was the centerpiece of the League 42 ballpark facility, a baseball league started in 2015 to help kids with little access to organized sports. The league currently has 600 kids signed up to play this spring. Wichita police said during a Friday news conference that they are working desperately to catch the thieves. (Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle via AP)
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — 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 judge sentenced Ricky Alderete Friday on three different cases that 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 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’s uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with whom he broke the major leagues’ color barrier in 1947.
Firefighters found burned remnants of the statue five days later while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) 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 happened Feb. 1 that carried a sentence of 13.5 years in prison.
“I 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,” he said in court Friday. “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 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.
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.
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. Robinson died in 1972.
