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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 11, 1993                   TAG: 9309110119
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C-6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Medium

PREP STAR BEGINS SERVING PENALTY

Allen Iverson was assigned to the bakery shop at the Newport News City Farm. "We bake our own bread," said Billy Payne, director of adult corrections.

Iverson, 18, was sent to the 190-inmate facility after being sentenced Wednesday in Hampton Circuit Court on three felony counts of maiming by mob. Judge Nelson Overton suspended two five-year terms but ordered Iverson to serve a third term and refused to release him pending an appeal.

Iverson will be eligible for parole in 10 months to a year.

Payne said city farm inmates begin work about 7 a.m. and get off in the late afternoon. They can attend church services, drug treatment programs and high school equivalency classes in the evening.

Iverson would have been a senior this fall at Bethel High School, which he guided to state titles last school year in football and basketball. Payne said he did not know if Iverson would try to complete his high school education at the jail farm.

Iverson was assigned to a cell with three other inmates, Payne said. Most of the inmates at the jail farm are first-time offenders.

Iverson's conviction and sentence have raised complaints by black leaders in the community that he was treated harshly because he is a talented athlete.

The complaints include the unusual charge - maiming by mob - and what critics contend was a situation that could have been handled with misdemeanor charges instead of felonies.

Some people believe Iverson could have been turned over to a responsible community organization for supervision.

"City Farm is easy time, but he's in grad school for criminality," said the Rev. Lawrence Bethel, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Newport News. "The best thing would be work-release and let him go to school. Get the spotlight off of him."

Three people were injured in the Valentine's Day chair-throwing brawl that broke out when words were exchanged between groups of white and black bowlers. Three other men were convicted on charges stemming from the incident and also received time behind bars.