OK, so DeShawn gets suspended for 3 games by the league after pleading no contest on the sexual offense charge. I am not sure what my feelings are on this. Sometimes I think employers should stay out of it, and others I feel differently. What do you think your employer would do if you were DeShawn? http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news/20020215/stevenson.html Jazz G Stevenson suspended three games by NBA February 15, 2002 NEW YORK (TICKER) -- Utah Jazz guard DeShawn Stevenson may have gotten away easy in a California court on Monday. He received no such liberties from the NBA on Friday. Stevenson was suspended three games without pay for his plea of no contest to a sexual offense charge. He will miss road games Friday against Toronto, Sunday at New York and Monday at Cleveland. As a rule, the NBA suspends players who enter pleas of guilty or implied guilt. Portland's Ruben Patterson was suspended for the first five games of the season after entering an Alford plea to a sexual offense charge. On Monday in Fresno County Superior Court, Stevenson received a sentence of two years probation and 100 hours of community service after entering a no contest plea to a statutory rape charge. Stevenson was not present at the sentencing. Stevenson, 20, is a second-year guard who went from high school directly to the NBA. He had started a handful of games at shooting guard this season but played just four minutes off the bench in Thursday's win at Philadelphia. According to court records, Stevenson allegedly admitted to the mother of a 14-year-old girl in a tape-recorded telephone call that he had sex with her daughter. Police reports stated that Stevenson and two friends took the 14-year-old and a 15-year-old female friend to a motel in July and that Stevenson and one of his friends gave the girls alcohol and had sex with them. On the night he was drafted in 2000, Stevenson was involved in a brawl at a high school basketball game. The 23rd overall pick in the 2000 draft after starring at Washington Union High School in California, Stevenson has played in 44 games for the Jazz, averaging 5.0 points and 2.0 rebounds.
I think most employers would lay off someone who essentially admitted that they violated the law, no matter the punishment that the court layed down, especially the family-oriented employers. Perhaps not so in a big corporation, but in middle sized and smaller ones, definately.
If the employee brought shame upon the company and, due to that, infringed on the company's business or potential businees, then the employee needs to be dealt with.
Whatever. Three game suspension for a rape charge? That is getting off easy. If they were going to hand out such a pansy punishment, they'd have been better off staying out of the business altogether. They want to convey that they care what their players are doing and will discipline them when they get out of line. This is obviously just a slap on the wrist which is essentially saying the NBA doesn't really care what they do off-the-court -- even moreso than just letting the courts handle it would.
