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February 8, 2008

UGA hoops player Humphrey suspended

ATHENS (AP) — Georgia guard Billy Humphrey was suspended for three games Thursday after being arrested for underage drinking, his second brush with the law in less than three months.

Humphrey, the team’s second-leading scorer, was arrested a few hours after the Bulldogs lost their fourth straight game.

The 20-year-old junior will miss Georgia’s game at Florida on Saturday, as well as home contests next week against South Carolina and Tennessee.

It was another major blow for a program that already lost two key players this season. Takais Brown and Mike Mercer were kicked off the team by coach Dennis Felton for unspecified violations of team rules.

“I’m extremely disappointed any time one of our players fails to live up to being a reliable part of our team and our family,” Felton said.

Hilda Sorrow, a public information assistant with Athens-Clarke County police, said Humphrey was stopped by an officer about 1:30 a.m. when he failed to obey a traffic control device while crossing a busy downtown street near campus.

“The officer on patrol had to stop for the offender in the roadway,” Sorrow said, reading from the arrest report. “He failed to obey a pedestrian traffic control device. He had the ’Don’t Walk’ sign.”

Suspecting Humphrey had been drinking, the officer tested him with a hand-held alcohol detector before making the arrest, Sorrow said.

In November, Humphrey was jailed for a felony weapons charge after campus police discovered a knife while investigating a tip that marijuana was in his dormitory room.

No drugs were found, but Humphrey told police he had a souvenir knife from a trip to South America in the room. The player’s attorney, Kim Stephens, said it was nothing more than a “little butterfly knife,” but Humphrey was charged under a state law that prohibits a blade longer than 2 inches on school property.

Humphrey was suspended for one game, then reinstated to the team after accepting pretrial diversion that required him to serve 80 hours of community service and stay out of trouble for 18 months. He also was placed on one-year probation by the Student Judiciary.

Kim Stephens, Humphrey’s attorney, said he doesn’t believe the latest arrest would result in further legal sanctions stemming from the weapons case.

“I hope that something like this wouldn’t result in him being terminated from those programs,” Stephens said. “That would be a possibility, but I’m 90 percent confident they won’t.”

Under Georgia athletic association policy, a first alcohol-related offense calls for a player to be suspended for up to 10 percent of his team’s games.

The police report said Humphrey registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.03 percent, well below the legal limit of intoxication for someone 21 or older. But Sorrow said any positive reading was sufficient for a charge of underage possession and consumption of alcohol.

Humphrey also was charged with failing to obey a pedestrian traffic control signal. He was booked into jail, posted a $1,000 bond and released less than two hours later.

Humphrey’s arrest came after he scored 8 points in a 67-59 loss to No. 23 Vanderbilt on Wednesday night. He is second on the team in scoring at 13.1 points a game, trailing only Sundiata Gaines (13.2).

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