Gastineau sentenced to 18 months in jail

NEW YORK (AP) - Former New York Jets star Mark Gastineau was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in jail for violating court orders that stemmed from his tense relationship with his wife.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge A. Kirke Bartley sentenced Gastineau, 43, to a year on his guilty plea in April to a misdemeanor assault charge and six months for contempt of court.

Gastineau's lawyer, Sharyn Stein, asked Bartley to give the former defensive lineman another opportunity to straighten out his life. "He's a changed man," she said.

Bartley said as he sentenced Gastineau, "I have given you beyond a second and third chance."

The charges grew out of Gastineau's flouting of a 1998 court order of protection to stay away from his estranged wife, Patricia Schorr, and his failure to complete a court-ordered, yearlong anger management course.

Schorr obtained the protection order after Gastineau pleaded guilty in October 1998 to misdemeanor assault for hitting her the previous month and threatening her with a glass cocktail table.

In April this year, Bartley directed Gastineau to spend a year at the Hope Christian Center, a Bronx treatment facility. If he failed to finish the program, the judge said, Gastineau was "surely" going to jail.

On Aug. 22, Gastineau walked away from the program after threatening another resident, Assistant District Attorney Angela Albertus said. In court yesterday, she reminded the judge of his warning to the former football star.

Gastineau, who played for the Jets for 10 years, had previously been found guilty of assault in 1984 and was sentenced to three years probation in 1993 on drug charges.