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Charges Dropped Against Pitt Basketball's Levance Fields; Coach Won't Reveal Punishment
POSTED: 1:56 pm EDT October 2,
2007
UPDATED: 7:33 pm EDT October 2,
2007
PITTSBURGH -- Levance Fields, a junior point guard on the University of Pittsburgh basketball team, will enter a program for first-time offenders following his arrest outside a Strip District nightclub last month.Prosecutors agreed on Tuesday to drop charges of disarming a police officer, public drunkenness and aggravated assault, stemming from Fields' alleged scuffle with a police officer on Sept. 16. A lesser charge of simple assault will stand.In exchange, Fields must spend nine months in the Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition program and serve 50 hours of community service. If he completes the probation without incident, his record will be expunged, defense attorney Robert DelGreco Jr. said."We acknowledge wrongdoing and accepted responsibility and were grateful for what we believe to be a fair but firm disposition," DelGreco said.Pitt basketball coach Jamie Dixon has not commented yet on what discipline awaits Fields, except to say that it "will remain within the confines of our program.""I know he has learned valuable lessons from the experience and will be better for it," Dixon said in a written statement. (Read The Entire Statement)According to Pittsburgh police reports, Fields, 20, was arguing with an unknown man and using obscene language outside Puro nightclub early on the morning of Sept. 16.An off-duty officer working security at the club on 19th Street said Fields appeared to have been drinking and ordered him to stop yelling.The officer said Fields punched him in the chest, grabbed his belt and reached for his gun, and the officer and his partner used a Taser gun to subdue and arrest Fields.The nightclub was holding an under-21 dance night and was not serving alcohol, owner Vince Isoldi told WTAE Channel 4's news exchange partners at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.A witness who did not want to be identified told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that Fields never reached for the police officer's gun, and that the altercation between Fields and another person at the club was just friends fooling around."That wasn't our witness," DelGreco said Tuesday. "That's not our posture."
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