Judge releases Clarett from probation

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

Maurice Clarett’s face broke into a wide grin on Wednesday when a Franklin County judge released him from probation two months ahead of schedule.

“This chapter is over,” the Youngstown native and former Warren Harding and Ohio State football star said after the hearing.

Retiring Common Pleas Judge David W. Fais, whose last day on the job is Friday, said he wanted to end Clarett’s probation before leaving the bench. He called Clarett’s case “one of the truly, truly wonderful success stories I’ve had” in 26 years as a judge.

“I am not rewarding Mr. Clarett,” Fais said. “Mr. Clarett is rewarding himself by what he accomplished” while on probation.

Clarett, 31, who helped lead the Buckeyes to the 2002 national championship, was sentenced in 2006 to 71/2 years in prison for robbery and weapons convictions. Fais granted him judicial release in April 2010 and placed him on intensive probation for five years.

Since his release from prison, Clarett has made a career of public speaking and wrote an autobiography, My Life. My Story. My Redemption. Over the next 60 days, Clarett said, he is scheduled to speak in 24 cities, “everywhere from universities to prisons to nonprofits.”

The speeches, he said, “are educational, not motivational. I’m giving insights.”

He also sells online memberships for his “Different Day, Same Discipline” program, which he promotes as a way to “discipline your mind and life through the habit of daily fitness and personal development.”

Last summer, he launched a series of camps that, in part, help high school athletes and their parents prepare for the transition to college life, he said.

Fais didn’t ask for comments from Clarett; his attorney, Michael Hoague; or Assistant County Prosecutor James Lowe during the brief hearing. Instead, he explained Clarett had complied with every requirement of probation and that the probation department had generated nothing but positive reports about him.

Clarett’s convictions stemmed from a chain of events that began on Jan. 1, 2006, when he robbed a couple at gunpoint outside a Downtown bar, and ended on Aug. 9, 2006, when he was arrested wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying four guns and a hatchet in his car. That arrest occurred after police had chased him at high speeds.