Former NBA player sentenced to 1 year in Edgewater assault

Posted: 4:43 pm Fri, February 3, 2012
By Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS — A former professional basketball player was ordered to spend a year in jail for assaulting his girlfriend’s brother after a cookout in Maryland.

Oliver Miller, who played for the Phoenix Suns and other teams in the 1990s, pleaded guilty in November to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun. According to prosecutors, Miller and his girlfriend’s brother argued at a cookout in Edgewater in April, and Miller later hit him repeatedly in the head with a gun. The man required 11 staples to close his wounds.

Deputy State’s Attorney Thomas Fleckenstein said a judge sentenced Miller on Friday to serve five years on the assault charge but suspended all but a year of the sentence. He was sentenced to three years on the handgun charge with all but 30 days suspended.