
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 11, 1993                   TAG: 9309110068
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV 8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

FORMER BASKETBALL PLAYER GETS 6 YEARS PROBATION AFTER THEFTS

Former Radford High School basketball standout Christopher Hairston has received two three-year suspended prison terms following his conviction on charges of breaking and entering and grand larceny. Hairston, 19, was sentenced by Radford Circuit Court Judge Duane Mink on Friday.

He will serve six years of active probation.

Hairston was charged in February with breaking into an apartment at Bergen Pines on Second Avenue and taking various items, including firearms, authorities said. Most of the items were recovered.

Brian A. Canaday, 20, also a former Bobcats basketball player, had been indicted for grand larceny in the same case. Mink took those charges under advisement for three years, but sentenced him to 300 hours of community service. Commonwealth's Attorney Randal Duncan said both Canaday and Hairston were ordered to make restitution for items not recovered after the break-in.

He said Canaday must stay out of trouble for three years or risk being convicted of grand larceny.

In other cases Friday, 20-year-old Thomas Newby of Radford was sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison for his convictions in July of robbery and using a firearm in a felony.

Newby got 15 years for robbery and two years for the firearms violation. Duncan said Newby will serve 12 years in prison and the remaining five years on active probation.

Newby had been charged in March with robbing an undercover police informant during a drug-related transaction last October. The informant was wearing a monitoring device, and police arrested Newby at the scene.

Mink also handed out a 10-year suspended prison term to Tony L. Martin, 24, of Pulaski County after his car theft conviction in an incident last January. He will serve five years on active probation.

The judge also ruled that Brady L. Cooper, 25, of Christiansburg, will spend 45 days in jail after he failed to show up at his job in June during a work release from Radford City Jail. Cooper got the original jail time for being a habitual offender.

by CNB