Mike Bell, a former reserve safety for the MSU football team, was sentenced Wednesday to one year of probation for his involvement in a September 2006 scuffle.
The 21-year-old was charged with violating an MSU ordinance, reduced from assault and battery, after he and his girlfriend were involved in a dispute outside Demonstration Hall on Sept. 8, 2006, when he was waiting to attend a dance.
The ordinance violated states: "No person shall disrupt the normal use of any campus building or area which has been assigned or scheduled by appropriate means for educational or extracurricular activities." Bell was sentenced under Judge Richard Ball at East Lansing's 54-B District Court.
During sentencing, Bell's lawyer, James Newton, said Bell's scholarship was revoked mainly because of the incident.
The probation falls under the Youthful Training Act, which allows people between the ages of 17 and 21 who serve their probation without any problems to have the incidents erased from their record, Newton said.
"I am sorry for the whole situation," Bell said.
"I understand I handled it the wrong way.
"I think about it every day."
Bell was dismissed from the football team last year for disciplinary reasons, said John Lewandowski, MSU's associate athletics director for media relations.
Lewandowski said first-year head coach Mark Dantonio will handle disciplinary issues on a case-by-case basis.
The Sept. 8 incident involved Bell's girlfriend and another woman in line for the dance at Demonstration Hall getting into a fight. Two of the woman's friends joined in the fight and told police they were punched.
One of the victims said Bell tried to punch her but missed and pushed her to the ground.
During the sentencing, Newton said Bell had to take his girlfriend to the hospital after the incident to receive stitches. He said Bell threatened to press charges against the women, and upon hearing his threat, the women pressed charges against him.
Along with serving probation, Bell also was ordered not to contact the three women involved in the scuffle, pay $500 in court costs and $106 in parking tickets.
"I don't want to leave here with anyone thinking I'm a brute or I hurt women," Bell said. "I have two sisters and a mother. … I'm not a violent person. I'm just really sorry."
Laura Misjak can be reached at misjakla@msu.edu.
