After a lengthy legal battle that made national news, the man who stole a Jackie Robinson statue from a Wichita, Kansas, youth baseball club was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday.
In May, 45-year-old Ricky Alderete entered a guilty plea to counts including stealing. According to a Friday article in The Wichita Eagle, the majority of the prison term was imposed for an aggravated burglary that occurred on February 1 following the theft of the statue on January 25. When the statue vanished, Alderete was also under probation for a different offense.
Alderete received a further 18 months in prison for taking the statue. club 42 is a local baseball club that was established in 2013 “to fill a need so that Wichita’s urban youngsters might have an opportunity to play baseball,” according to the league’s website. He was also ordered to pay $41,500 in reparations to the league. After decades of segregation enforced by the league and its owners, Robinson became the first Black player to play in Major League Baseball in 1947, earning the league’s jersey number.
After the statue was taken, the league received over $700,000 in gifts, one of which came from Major League Baseball, according to the Wichita Eagle. Later on, in another park, it was discovered burning inside a garbage can. Plans to sell the monument for scrap metal were the driving force behind the crime, according to Wichita officials, who accepted Alderete’s guilty plea in May.
This month, League 42 will present a replacement statue of Robinson.
(Photo of the Jackie Robinson statue that stood in Wichita, Kan.: Courtesy of League 42)
