Art Schlichter, Former Colts QB, Given 11-Year Prison Sentence for Ticket-Selling Scheme

Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Art Schlichter is headed to prison once again.

Earlier today, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson sentenced Schlichter to nearly 11 years jail-time for a scheme in which the one-time Ohio State athlete hustled more than 50 people out of millions of dollars for sports tickets.

Authorities say that Schlichter, the fourth overall pick of the 1982 NFL draft, promised his victims NCAA and NFL tickets, including the Super Bowl passes, but never came through on the delivery of those items despite having received payment in advance.

USA Today writes that “one of Schlichter’s victims in the ticket scheme was Anita Barney, the widow of a former Wendy’s Co. president, whose attorney said last year she had been ruined by Schlichter. Barney’s homes are being foreclosed and her only income is from Social Security, attorney William Loveland said.”

Loveland added that Schlichter swindled his client out of at least $680,000 and convinced her to ask friends and associates for more money for his scheme.

Art pleaded guilty in the fall of 2011, and stayed free on house arrest pending sentencing and attended weekly counseling. In January of 2012, however, he was arrested after twice testing positive for cocaine and for refusing several times to provide urine samples.

He has requested prison drug abuse counseling once his sentencing begins.

Schlichter, 52, has spent a large portion of his life in and out of prisons for various crimes related to his compulsive gambling (which he claimed to have overcome in the past) but Fox Sports notes that the 127-month sentence handed down by Judge Watson was the longest yet.

via FOX Sports