Remorseful Bennett Suspended by UCLA : College football: Defensive back who pleaded no contest to felony charges hopes to play again in 1995.

Step 2 of Tommy Bennett’s three-step program to get on with his life was completed Thursday when he was suspended from UCLA for the fall quarter.

Step 3, playing football again, will have to wait.

Bennett, a defensive back who has not played this season, pleaded no contest in West Los Angeles Superior Court last month to felony charges of making a false financial statement and grand theft and was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and three years probation.

He had been arrested on March 3 in his Saxon Suites dormitory room on campus, booked and released on his own recognizance. Pete Dalis, UCLA’s athletic director, immediately suspended him from the athletic department, pending resolution of his legal difficulties.

Since then, six months of legal maneuvering have left him on the outside, looking in at school and UCLA’s football season.

“I just want to get things resolved, one way or the other,” he said a week ago, just after visiting Coach Terry Donahue to seek help in being readmitted to school. “Not knowing is the toughest part. I want to finish school, and I want to play football again, but it’s not up to me.”

The decision Thursday was handed down by Cary Porter, senior associate dean of students at UCLA.

Bennett said that his problems began because of financial difficulties in his San Diego home, where his mother supports a daughter and several other people.

“I was having problems with financial aid and I was broke,” he said. “But that’s not a reason for what I did. It’s an excuse. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Police investigators said that in April of 1993, Bennett applied to the Department of Motor Vehicles for an identification card, using his picture and the name of another UCLA student. He then applied to a company in Las Vegas to supply a birth certificate, again in the name of the other student.

He used the identification card and birth certificate to open accounts in “four or five local banks” and get a credit card, said Det. Terry Brown of the UCLA police. It was then a matter of writing checks and using the credit card, beginning in May of 1993.

When overdrafts started appearing and charge account bills went unpaid, the student whose name had been used was pursued by banks and went to the UCLA police on Nov. 12, 1993.

The investigation took several months and culminated in the March 3 arrest, at which time a search warrant turned up evidence of forgery and other crimes, generating seven charges, five of which were dismissed by the court.

The student was able to identify Bennett from the picture on the ID card.

The amount involved totaled $2,821.55, and Brown said restitution has been made as part of Bennett’s sentence.

Bennett had been a starting safety as a sophomore in UCLA’s Rose Bowl season and was part of a defense that generated 40 turnovers. He intercepted three passes and recovered three fumbles, returning one 18 yards for a touchdown against Washington State.

His size, six feet and 200 pounds, would have been an asset this season for a Bruin secondary that has little.

He knows.

“I went to the Tennessee game and watched, and I left,” he said. “I couldn’t take it. I’ve played since I was 7 years old, and it feels empty not to be playing.”

Having used his redshirt season, Bennett will have one more year to play if he is allowed to return. He considered transferring to try to play this season but could not because of the timing involved in his sentencing and appeal to UCLA for reinstatement.

Since leaving school, where he was on a schedule to graduate next winter, he has worked at odd jobs, part of the time as a security guard, and lived with UCLA and San Diego Morse High teammate Teddy Lawrence.

Bennett had worked with children, both in San Diego and at UCLA, and had been held up as a role model--someone who had escaped the temptations of gang life in the inner city.

“Maybe the hardest thing I’ve had to do is to tell kids what I did was wrong, and that I am sorry for it,” he said.

His future remains clouded, though there is precedent for his being allowed to return to the football team. A year ago, linebacker Jamir Miller was suspended for one game and played the rest of the season after pleading no contest to charges of receiving stolen goods. It was also anticipated that nose guard Bruce Walker would return after a year’s suspension in the same incident.

Instead, Walker chose the NFL draft and was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round, then later cut.

After making All-American last season, Miller took the same route, giving up his senior season and becoming a first-round draft choice of the Arizona Cardinals.

“Whether or not Tommy returns to the football team is not an issue at this time,” Donahue said of Bennett. “What is important is that Tommy does what is necessary to be readmitted to school and earn his degree.”