Gilbert Arenas home from halfway house

Associated Press

GREAT FALLS, Va.

How long was Gilbert Arenas in a halfway house? Long enough to get locked out of his own driveway.

The Washington Wizards guard arrived home Friday morning, having completed the confinement portion of his punishment for bringing guns into the team’s locker room.

Wearing a short-sleeved black T-shirt, Arenas drove up to his large brick house in the Virginia suburbs of Washington in a tan Mercedes SUV at about 8:30 a.m. He then reached out his left arm and tried to punch the combination on the keypad to enter his gated driveway.

After several failed attempts, he muttered “Alrighty,” got out of his car and called toward the house for help. A woman inside the gate yelled out the code. Arenas punched it in and finally was able to pull into his driveway.

Approached by a reporter, Arenas responded to all questions with a polite shrug, indicating he had nothing to say.

A few minutes later, he re-emerged in a long-sleeve black T-shirt with a hood pulled low over his forehead. He stepped into a white Range Rover and drove off.

Arenas pleaded guilty to felony gun possession in the District of Columbia in January and was sentenced in March to a month in the halfway house. His sentence also includes two years of probation, a $5,000 fine and 400 hours of community service that can’t be performed at basketball clinics.

His sentence started April 9 with two days in jail before he was moved to the halfway house in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. He was allowed to leave the facility during the day. A fan tweeted about seeing him at a local grocery store and posted a picture of him posing near the bottled tea.

Arenas’ sentence called for 30 days at the facility, but he was released slightly early because the Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t release offenders from halfway houses on weekends.

The 28-year-old point guard is now free to resume his basketball career. His NBA suspension expired at the end of the season, and he has four years remaining on a six-year, $111 million contract he signed with the Wizards in the summer of 2008.

The Wizards could have attempted to trade Arenas or void the remainder of his contract, but president Ernie Grunfeld has said definitively that the team’s marquee player will be welcome back next season.