MIAMI — Former Major League Baseball most valuable player Jose Canseco could spend the next month in a Miami-Dade County jail after admitting to a judge Tuesday that he’s guilty of violating probation on assault charges.
When he finally gets back to court for a sentencing hearing on March 17, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick dismissed Canseco’s pleas for mercy and freedom on bond while awaiting the sentencing hearing.
Jailing probation violators is standard procedure. Because of his celebrity status, Canseco will be held in an isolation cell for his own protection, jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said.
The former slugger, wearing a double-breasted dark suit, looked stunned as he sat in the jury box with his hands cuffed in front
of him.
His father, Jose Sr., and twin brother, Osvaldo “Ozzie” Canseco, looked on in disbelief from the gallery.
His father said Jose had been treated unfairly.
“The United States should be proud to have such a man as Jose Canseco in this country,” Jose Canseco Sr. said. “This is very, very unfair.”
The Canseco twins, 38, grudgingly pleaded guilty in November to aggravated battery and battery for allegedly breaking the nose of an Opium Garden patron and splitting the lip of another during a 2001 brawl. Jose was also charged with battery on a bouncer at the Miami Beach nightclub.
The brothers maintained they were protecting Jose’s date, who they said was harassed by two men from California, Christian Presley and Alan Cheeks, who were in town for a business convention.
Lage said the brothers were accepting the plea deals to get the case over with and protect their families, not because they were guilty.
Glick placed Jose Canseco on probation for three years and ordered him to perform 250 hours of community service and take an anger management course.
He also ordered Canseco to pay court costs.
According to an arrest warrant issued Friday, Jose Canseco failed to make monthly reports to his probation officer, failed to begin the community service hours and failed to take the anger management course.
Another term of the probation prohibited him from leaving South Florida for longer than 30 days at a time. He violated that, too, according to the warrant.
He’s also behind on court costs and supervision costs. He owes $247.91.