Leaf arrested again
Former QB’S life takes another wrong turn with 2nd painkiller-related arrest in 4 days
Former quarterback is accused of breaking into homes, stealing pills,
The sad saga of Ryan Leaf took another turn Monday, when the former college quarterback and NFL draft bust was busted for burglary for a second time in four days in his native Montana. Authorities there painted a bleak picture of a drug addict who allegedly breaks into homes to steal prescription painkillers.
“It’s a pretty sad deal,” says Leaf’s attorney, Kenneth Olson. “Obviously, it’s a product of Ryan’s addictive behavior.”
The accusations follow a pattern for Leaf, 35, who was arrested in Texas in 2008 and pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the theft of prescription pain medication from the home of a player at West Texas A&M when Leaf was quarterbacks coach at the Division II school.
“I feel for anybody who has an addiction,” West Texas A&M coach Don Carthel says. “He was really a positive coach on our staff until the time he got back on the drugs here.”
Former San Diego Chargers general man- ager Bobby Beathard, who picked Leaf No. 2 overall behind Peyton Manning in the 1998 NFL draft, remembers Leaf less charitably: “His biggest robbery was me drafting him and him getting all the money from the team.”
Leaf pleaded guilty to eight felony charges in the Texas case. He received a suspended sentence and was placed on 10 years’ probation.
He was arrested Friday in Great Falls, Mont., when a search of his pickup truck led to the discovery of 28 oxycodone pills. The label on an empty prescription bottle in Leaf’s golf bag was in the name of an acquaintance who told police that Leaf stole the pills from his home Thursday. That arrest followed a month-long investigation
by the Central Montana Drug Task Force.
Sunday, according to court documents, homeowners in Great Falls said they found a tall, athletic-looking man inside their house when they returned home and that the well-dressed man told them he must be at the wrong address and left. Later, they noticed three bottles of prescription pain medication missing and called police, identifying Leaf in a photo lineup given by sheriff’s deputies.
Great Falls Police Sgt. Chris Hickman, commander of the Central Montana Drug Task Force, said investigators secured a search warrant for the GPS device in Leaf’s pickup and the device showed Leaf was in the area of the homeowners’ residence Sunday about the time of the alleged burglary.
Leaf was arrested at his home Monday. The arrest report said deputies found 89 hydrocodone pills in his bathrobe pocket and an empty prescription bottle of liquid codeine in a suitcase. Police were investigating whether he might have lifted some of those pills from other homes.
Leaf was charged with burglary, theft and two counts of criminal possession of dangerous drugs. Those are in addition to the charges of burglary, theft and drug possession he faces from his Friday arrest. He was free on $76,000 bail at the time of his second arrest in Montana.
Leaf will remain in custody as authorities decide whether to release him on bail or if a probation violation from the Texas case precludes that. Randall County (Texas) District Attorney James Farren said Monday that he planned to petition to revoke the suspended sentence. Did health issues play role?
It is unclear what, if anything, all this might have to do with Leaf’s health. Surgeons removed a benign tumor from his brain stem last year, and he told radio interviewers before the Super Bowl in February that he had eight weeks of radiation treat- ments to kill a part of the tumor that surgeons could not remove. He said then that an MRI would show if radiation worked. In an e-mail with an Associated Press reporter March 21, Leaf said he was “doing/feeling much better” and had an MRI scheduled for the end of the month.
Leaf’s latest Twitter message, sent Saturday, said: “I’ve made sum mistakes, & have no excuses. i’m using the tools I’ve learned 2 move forward rather than backwards, & will B open 2 talking abt the details in the days 2 come.” The tweet echoed a statement released with conventional spelling by his publicist a day earlier.
Leaf is being held in Great Falls, where he was born and where he led Charles M. Russell High School to a 1992 state football championship. He was a Heisman Trophy finalist in 1997 at Washington State, where he led the Cougars to their first Rose Bowl in 67 years, a game they lost 21-16 to eventual national champion Michigan.
It is hard to remember now, given the paths each took, but Leaf was considered almost as good an NFL prospect as Manning, the No. 1 overall choice in 1998 by the Indianapolis Colts.
“Half the teams liked Manning and half liked Leaf,” says Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys personnel guru, now a senior analyst for Nfl.com.
“(Leaf) probably had better talent as far as being a football player. But the fact that Manning had such great work habits, that was the big difference. ... (Leaf) got $14 million when he signed . . . and let it slip away.”
Jordan Palmer, brother of Oakland Raiders quarterback Carson Palmer, praises Leaf for helping him when he played at Texas-el Paso under Mike Price, who had been Leaf’s coach at Washington State.
“Here’s a guy who was misunderstood, who had a ton of talent, who struggled to connect all the dots both on and off the field,” Palmer says. “Unfortunately, how the last few years have transpired has snowballed on him.”
Beathard says he thinks Leaf had issues at Washington State that Price neglected to tell scouts about.
“I don’t think Mike Price leveled with us,” Beathard said. “I knew the Mannings and what kind of person Peyton was, for sure. I didn’t know Ryan’s people. There were probably too many red flags, and we went ahead and took him because we didn’t think there would be another quarterback.”
Efforts to reach Price on Monday were unsuccessful. ‘These things happen in life’
Leaf wrote 596 Switch, a 2011 book named for the play he says would have resulted in a winning touchdown in the Rose Bowl had the clock not expired with his team at the Michigan 26-yard line. Near the book’s end, he lamented his choice to leave college after his junior season.
“Going to the NFL when I did was absolutely the wrong decision,” Leaf wrote. “I wasn’t ready mentally or emotionally.”
Leaf made appearances on the radio in the days before the Super Bowl to promote the book. On Washington’s ESPN 980, he was asked about his tough times after the NFL.
“I don’t know if it’s been tough times other than just, you know, it’s life,” Leaf said. “These things happen in life to everyone, and it’s just how you deal with it and move on.”