Iverson Is Arraigned in Gun Case

He was booked at dawn and asked to surrender his belt and shoelaces. He was fingerprinted. His tattoos were photographed. He was offered a cheese sandwich.

After those preliminaries, Allen Iverson, the NBA scoring leader and darling of the hip-hop generation, spent the next 11 hours Tuesday in police custody. A multimillionaire who lives in a gated mansion, Iverson found himself charged with barging into an apartment and threatening two men with a handgun July 3 while searching for his wife.

By 4 p.m., his baggy white T-shirt was drooping on his bony shoulders and his cornrows were asunder as Iverson slouched and listened to a bail commissioner over a closed-circuit TV hookup in his holding cell. After a five-minute arraignment, he was a free man, let loose on a $10,000 signature bail and ordered to appear in court Monday.

He uttered not a word, but his lawyer did. “The plea is a strong and definite not guilty,” said Richard Sprague, a formidable former prosecutor in a gray suit, answering a 14-count charge sheet that included four felonies.

Reporters, fans and gawkers chased the man called “The Answer” through a police parking lot, and Philadelphia’s civic debate only escalated. On radio talk shows and in letters to the editor, the question of the week remained: Is Allen Iverson a pampered thug or a family man unfairly demonized for taking his uncle to his cousin’s house to look for his wife?

Iverson was certainly the only defendant among the accused drug dealers and wife beaters in police custody who was allowed to wait five days at home for his top-shelf lawyer to return from a European vacation before turning himself in.

Iverson, 27, also nicknamed “A.I.,” or “Bubba Chuck,” is no ordinary felony defendant, of course. Of all the great athletes who have played in Philadelphia, he is arguably the one who has connected most viscerally with fans--a tireless dynamo and a fearless scorer who has lifted the Philadelphia 76ers out of mediocrity. He is also a man with a rebellious streak that has prompted past clashes with the law and soured his relationship with his coach.

His surrender Tuesday was a climax to a five-day media siege triggered by the announcement on July 11 that police intended to charge Iverson with crimes that could total 70 years in prison. While Iverson waited at his $2.4-million Main Line manse under virtual house arrest, TV crews staked out the house.

The crews tailed Iverson at 5 a.m. Tuesday to police headquarters in Philadelphia, where he was driven through a rear garage to avoid the press scrum in front. Police had promised that Iverson would be treated like any other defendant, but ordinary miscreants are paraded on foot through front entrances.

According to police, Iverson and his uncle Gregory forced their way into the West Philadelphia apartment of Allen Iverson’s cousin in the early morning hours of July 3.

The police have based their case on the statements of Charles Jones, 21, a resident of the apartment who said Iverson threatened him and a 17-year-old companion while displaying a gun in his waistband.

In a 911 call made 10 hours after the incident, according to a transcript published by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jones told police: “When I woke up, Iverson was standing over me.... He was like, ‘Where’s my [expletive] wife at?’ ... He had a gun on his hip. He was sitting there threatening to shoot me.”

Jones also claimed that Iverson’s cousin, Shaun Bowman, had told him that Bowman was “hiding away” Iverson’s wife, Tawanna, after Allen “put her out of the house naked.”

Jones added: “It’s like the third time he did it.”

The allure of a celebrity scandal stoked public and media interest in a city bereft of A-list celebrities. The Iverson saga has been front-page news, overshadowing the arrival of a new superintendent for the city’s troubled schools and the sudden dropping of murder charges against four defendants in the killing of seven people in a crack house.

“I have people murdered in the streets of Philadelphia and I don’t see all of you here,” Dist. Atty. Lynne Abraham told a horde of reporters pursuing the most famous of the 80,000 city criminal defendants processed annually.

Philadelphia’s beleaguered sports fans seem willing to forgive Iverson’s off-court behavior in deference to his electrifying on-court skills. Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and Charles Barkley never consistently sold out the 76ers home arena. Only Iverson has. The team says only two fans have canceled season ticket subscriptions because of the Iverson scandal--and 15 new subscriptions have been sold.

Fans here can be brutal; they booed Santa Claus and cheered a career-threatening spinal injury that left a Dallas Cowboys receiver motionless on the Veterans Stadium turf. They hounded the aloof Phillies Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, yet adored profane outfielder Lenny Dykstra and beer-bellied first baseman John Kruk.

Iverson provides the energy and passion and hustle Philly fans crave. With his do-rags and baggy clothes, he also appeals to the hip-hop generation. His No. 3 jersey is the NBA’s top seller, and his contract with Reebok will pay him millions of dollars a year for the rest of his playing career.

Local defense lawyers say there is virtually no chance Iverson will serve jail time, and they predict the case against him will collapse.

“This case is about as weak as it gets,” said Brian McMonagle, a former Philadelphia prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney. “There’s a serious proof problem here.”

Police have searched Iverson’s home but have not found a gun. Nor have they interviewed his wife. The entire case rests on Jones, who McMonagle said is likely to be picked apart by a skilled lawyer should the case ever go to trial.

The affair has taken its toll on Sixers coach Larry Brown, who has feuded with Iverson over the guard’s lax practice habits and contempt for authority.

Brown, 61, wears the hounded look of a grandfather forced to stay up all night with a rambunctious toddler.

Even so, Brown and the Sixers pledged to support their wayward star. “He’s a teammate and a friend, and we want to get this resolved in the right way,” Brown said.

Stephen A. Smith, a Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter who has covered Iverson, predicted that the Sixers will not trade or suspend the league’s 2000-01 most valuable player.

“He’s box office,” he said.

Smith said the team may use Iverson’s arrest to persuade him to change his attitude and lifestyle. “They would never come out and say it, but this essentially validates for them everything they’ve been saying about Iverson: He’s undisciplined, he doesn’t respect authority,” he said.

Iverson is likely to be hauled before NBA Commissioner David Stern for a lecture similar to the one Stern delivered last year, when Iverson was about to release a rap album that disparaged homosexuals and women. (Iverson and his wife have two children, and Iverson’s mother accompanies him to games.)

The league’s collective bargaining agreement requires a player convicted of a violent felony to be suspended at least 10 days. Stern could add more time; he suspended ex-Golden State guard Latrell Sprewell 68 games for choking his coach.

The NBA says no active player has been convicted of a felony. Several have been charged with felonies, but the charges were either dropped or reduced.

Iverson served four months in prison in 1993 for his part in a bowling alley brawl in Virginia. He was later pardoned and his conviction overturned.

In 1997, Iverson received probation and was suspended for one game after a pistol was found in a car in which he was a passenger.

Iverson’s top source of income--his Reebok contract--seems secure. The firm issued a supportive statement: “It is Allen’s celebrity status, not the facts, that continues to fuel these proceedings.”

In fact, several marketing specialists said, the arrest might only enhance Iverson’s street props among the teenagers who buy his $125 “The Answer” sneakers.

Police said Iverson received no special treatment.

He posed for a mug shot, police Inspector Bill Colarulo said, and his tattooed neck and arms were photographed as “identifiable characteristics.”

Iverson was held in a secure room, away from other defendants, for his own protection “so that someone doesn’t try to make a name for himself at Allen Iverson’s expense,” Colarulo said.

When it was finally over, Iverson hopped into a green minivan. The vehicle sped past the jugglers and lemonade stand set up by an all-sports radio station and was trailed by news crews in vans and TV helicopters overhead.

Breathless news reports revealed that The Answer was heading to his mansion, where photographers last week had emerged with evidence of marital bliss. Their front-page photos showed Allen and Tawanna chatting and smiling in the yard, like any other suburban couple.