Notre Dame Booster Gets a Jail Term

A former Notre Dame booster who gave football players gifts and cash out of $1.2 million she stole from her employer was sentenced to four years in prison Monday at South Bend, Ind.

Kimberly Dunbar, 29, was also ordered to pay back all of what she stole after a judge expressed disgust at her “unwavering determination to financially rape this company.”

Superior Court Judge Jerome Frese suspended 12 of the 16 years in prison Dunbar faced on two Class C felonies and ordered her to pay restitution of $1.2 million to her former employer, Jerry Dominiack.

Despite Dunbar’s pleas for leniency, St. Joseph County prosecutor Michael Barnes insisted that she spend time in prison so that “she simply can’t walk away from this thing.”

Dunbar, who will be eligible for release after serving two years of her prison term, also was sentenced to probation from her release date until Sept. 28, 2014. As part of her probation, she will have to continue making restitution to Dominiack and cannot have any contact with the 12 players she gave gifts. She can see former Irish player Jarvis Edison, with whom she has a child, only with court approval.

She also has to cooperate with any civil action Dominiack brings against players to whom she gave jewelry, clothing and trips, among them an outing to a Chicago Bulls’ game that involved five current Irish players.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Mike Wadsworth said that the NCAA is still considering whether to penalize the football program. The five players involved in the trip to Chicago were cleared of any wrongdoing by the NCAA in August after the university made them donate the cost of the trip to charity.

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A former University of Nevada Las Vegas basketball star was convicted of stomping a 15-year-old girl to death. A New York jury deliberated nearly four days before it found Richie Adams, 35, guilty of manslaughter in the 1996 death of Norma Rodriguez. He could get life in prison at sentencing next month.

He was drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1985, but the next day he was arrested for stealing a car in the Bronx. The Bullets never invited him to training camp after that, and the rest of the NBA ignored him.

International Sports

Former runner Viljo Akseli Heino, the last of the track stars called the “Flying Finns,” has died at 84 the International Amateur Athletic Federation said. Heino died Sept. 15 in Tampere, Finland. The cause of death was not given.

In 1944, Heino set the world record for 10,000 meters of 28:38.6 in a race at Helsinki. He was also given credit in the same race for setting a world six-mile record.

Two-thirds of the doctors in cycling give their athletes increasingly sophisticated drugs as they race for more money, according to Dr. Joost De Maeseneer, medical chief of the Belgian cycling federation.

He made his comments after a Brussels newspaper reported that the Belgian federation had issued a formal complaint against Eric Ryckaert, the doctor for the Festina team, for his involvement in the Tour de France scandal.

Ryckaert was imprisoned during the race after more than 400 doping products, among them the endurance-enhancing drug EPO, were found in a Festina team car. The team was expelled from the race.

England’s Coach Glenn Hoddle dismissed suggestions by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson that England’s World Cup soccer players were given potentially dangerous performance-enhancing substances.

Hoddle said each member of England’s squad had his blood tested before the World Cup and was given vitamin and mineral supplements. Two players were prescribed boosters, administered voluntarily by injection, before the game against Colombia, he said.

Jurisprudence

Michael Jordan took the witness stand for nearly four hours at Chicago and testified that he had never refused to act in a 1991 basketball film that flopped without him.

The Chicago Bull superstar testified in the multimillion-dollar breach-of-contract lawsuit alleging that he reneged on a deal to star in the movie, which ultimately was made with former Loyola Marymount player Bo Kimble in the role Jordan was to have played.

The film made only $168,000 at the box office, its producers allege, and never got national distribution. The producers are seeking $16-20 million in damages, or what they believe could have been the film’s profit.

The NBA players’ union is expected to respond later this week to the latest collective bargaining offer from NBA owners, which includes some movement on their proposals for maximum and minimum salaries.

Miscellany

John Daly returns to competitive golf for the first time in more than a month today at the $1.8-million Gillette Tour Challenge Championships at Tucker’s Town, Bermuda. . . . Of the four tennis Grand Slam men’s champions this year, only Petr Korda will play in the Grand Slam Cup, which begins today at Munich, Germany. All four women who won Grand Slam tournaments will participate.

The fight Jan. 23 between George Foreman and Larry Holmes, billed as “the Birthday Bash,” was announced at the Astrodome at Houston. Foreman (76-5), a Houston native, turns 50 on Jan. 10. Holmes (66-6) turns 49 on Nov. 3. Foreman reportedly will receive $10 million and Holmes $4 million. . . . Senior guard Nathan Binam of Oral Roberts’ basketball team will have the index finger of his shooting hand amputated, Coach Barry Hinson said. Binam was injured in a traffic accident.

Next year’s CART FedEx champ car racing schedule was announced. Highlights include a new event in Chicago at Chicago Motor Speedway, being built on the site of Sportsman’s Park horse racing track, and the season finale Oct. 31 at Fontana, Calif. . . . The Long Beach Ice Dogs of the International Hockey League will have an open house at Long Beach Arena tonight at 6.

A memorial service will be held Wednesday at Steamboat Springs, Colo., for Doak Walker, who won the 1948 Heisman Trophy while at Southern Methodist. Walker died Sunday at a rehabilitation center in Colorado, where he had been recovering after a ski accident last January left him paralyzed. He was 71.