Ex-Wildcat Davender gets final sentence for NCAA ticket scam

Ed Davender, a University of Kentucky basketball star in the 1980s, was sentenced on Thursday to 12 months in jail on a misdemeanor theft charge related to an NCAA Final Four ticket scam.

The sentence, handed down by Fayette Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone, is to run concurrently with an eight-year prison sentence that Davender began serving in September for a similar scam in which victims lost tens of thousands of dollars.

"I believe this is the end of the road for the ticket scamming that went on," Davender's attorney, public defender Dennis Shepherd, told Scorsone Thursday.

Prosecutors recommended that the 12 months be tacked on to the end of the eight years, but Shepherd argued that Davender owed more than $70,000 in restitution to victims and he couldn't pay that back while sitting in prison.

"He has made a commitment to pay every penny of it," Shepherd said, adding that Davender also has pledged to give talks to middle and high school students about his rise to stardom in basketball and his fall as a felon.

Davender, 44, was accused of taking unlawfully a total of about $100,000 from numerous people in a series of scams. In addition to Fayette County, he has faced charges related to scams in Fleming, Grant and Harrison counties. The scams began as early as 2003 and continued until spring 2010, according to court records and authorities. Davender was accused of accepting money from people for UK men's basketball game tickets and NCAA Final Four tickets then not providing the tickets.

While he awaited sentencing in Fayette Circuit Court on 20 charges — most of them related to ticket scamming — Davender was accused of unlawfully accepting $4,000 from Louisville-area residents Richard Adams and Sean Hill from December 2009 through March 2010. Davender had promised them 14 2010 NCAA men's Final Four tickets, but he didn't keep his end of the bargain.

That theft-by-deception charge, which was amended from a felony to a misdemeanor, was the charge Davender was sentenced for Thursday.

"I just want to get on with my life. I apologize to my victims," a handcuffed Davender said while standing before Scorsone. Davender said he had kind of "robbed Peter to pay Paul" and had dug himself into a hole. He said he didn't like being an embarrassment to UK and the community.

Shepherd said the $4,000 owed Adams and Hill had been repaid. He said $3,600 of the restitution came from anonymous mentors of Davender, and the remaining $400 came from Davender's mother.

Davender played for UK from 1984 through 1988. He was chosen in the third round of the 1988 National Basketball Association Draft by the Washington Bullets. An injury prevented him from playing pro basketball, Shepherd said.

Davender will be eligible for parole in mid-2012.

"As far as I know, he's a model inmate," Shepherd said. "If the (state) legislature is really serious about solving our prison-population problem, Ed Davender should be considered as the number one candidate for early release,"

Fayette Circuit Judge James Ishmael denied Davender shock probation weeks after sentencing him to eight years in prison in September.

This story was originally published April 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Ex-Wildcat Davender gets final sentence for NCAA ticket scam."