Arenasdoc032310.Pdf

serving the community and others, and despite a history of pranks and misguided practical jokes, he is a peaceful man who is not aggressive or confrontational in any way. Many people can attest that Mr. Arenas has these defining traits. Besides undersigned counsel — who so attested in the Pre-Sentence Report (PSR)1 — countless individuals have called and/or written with their personal stories about Mr. Arenas, experiences ranging from brief encounters in which Mr. Arenas was generous with his time and attention, to long-term friendships that demonstrate the full depth of his loyalty and character. This input has been uniformly positive and supportive, and paints a picture of a man who is somewhat off-beat, but fundamentally very decent and unfailingly kind to others. The following memorandum attempts to capture that input and the character of the man who will be standing before Your Honor for sentencing on March 26. This character portrait is based on the letters we have received from those whose lives have been touched by Mr. Arenas, and their words are woven throughout the text. II. MR. ARENAS’ CHARACTER Mr. Arenas’ character has been forged over a lifetime that has seen both its share of challenges and disappointments as well as a surprising number of obstacles overcome and expectations exceeded. These experiences have taught him the value of hard work and determination and the importance of family and community. As a result, he is surprisingly grounded, especially given the extraordinary life he leads as a superstar basketball player. Indeed, Mrs. Frances Weekes, the Community Supervision Officer from the Court Services and 1 See Presentence Report (PSR) at 7-8 (Defense Attorney’s Statement) (Ex. 56). The exhibits cited herein are attached to the accompanying Declaration of Jeffrey S. Nestler in Support of the Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing. 2 Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), attests that Mr. Arenas is a “quiet and polite individual” who does not “display the swagger and personality of someone of his acclaim.”2 A. Mr. Arenas’ Background Mr. Arenas was born in Tampa, Florida, and spent his early childhood in Miami. He was raised by a single mother for the first three years of his life, until she fell victim to a narcotics habit. His father, Gilbert Arenas, Sr., then took custody of his son, and Mr. Arenas has not had a relationship with his mother since. His father raised him in Tampa until he was seven years old, at which point he and his father moved to Los Angeles, where his father worked odd jobs while pursuing his dream of being an actor. For a period after arriving in Los Angeles, Mr. Arenas and his father spent time living in a car, and as a close friend explained, Mr. Arenas’ childhood was “riddled with a lot of uncertainty.”3 1. Mr. Arenas’ Humor The challenging circumstances of his childhood had two primary effects on the shaping of Mr. Arenas’ personality. First, it caused him to turn to humor as a way of deflecting the more negative aspects of life. Mr. Arenas’ father explains that his son has always been “very fragile in a lot of ways; he just laughs and smiles to hide the pain.”4 Echoing that theme, a close friend explains that “[h]e has been through a lot of hurt in his life, stemming from a poverty-stricken childhood that followed his mother abandoning him and he’s developed a shield from it all by making people smile.”5 Mr. Arenas “was always a jokester that learned to laugh away the 2 PSR at 17. 3 Letter of Alana Beard, a player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics who is Mr. Arenas’ friend and colleague (Ex. 3). 4 Letter of Gilbert Arenas, Sr. (Ex. 2). 5 Letter of Dave McMenamin, a journalist for ESPN, who has gotten to know Mr. Arenas well over the past four years (Ex. 22). 3 pressure,”6 a trait that followed Mr. Arenas into adulthood and played a role in the misguided prank he played at the Verizon Center last December. 2. Mr. Arenas’ Determination to Exceed Expectations His early experiences also instilled in him a degree of “strength, resilience and belief in himself [that] lifted him through the[] struggles” of his childhood.7 Throughout his childhood and his basketball career, Mr. Arenas has used a combination of grit and determination to rise above the modest expectations that others have placed on him. As Mrs. Weekes of CSOSA explained, Mr. Arenas “had the fortitude to overcome the obstacles he encountered during his upbringing [to] become successful.”8 That assessment is borne out by the series of exceeded expectations that have defined Mr. Arenas’ basketball career, from his freshman year in high school to today. When he failed to secure a starting position on the junior varsity basketball team, Mr. Arenas convinced his father to move to a new school district, where he excelled as the star of the Grant High School basketball team. Following high school, Mr. Arenas was again underestimated when the local college basketball powerhouses, USC and UCLA, showed no interest in recruiting him. Mr. Arenas instead attended University of Arizona on a basketball scholarship, an opportunity that was available to him only because another player backed out of his commitment. Given Arizona’s status as a perennial NCAA powerhouse, several people warned Mr. Arenas that he could not measure up against the other players and would end up playing “zero minutes.” For inspiration, Mr. Arenas chose the number 0 for his jersey, and he quickly became 6 Letter of Sean Abbananto, the founder of leadership-training company Empowered for Life who was friends with Mr. Arenas as a teenager (Ex. 1). 7 Letter of Alana Beard (Ex. 3). 8 PSR at 17. 4 a stand-out player on the squad. He was named the most valuable player of the preseason NIT tournament in his freshman year, led the Arizona team in scoring during his sophomore year, and took the squad to the championship game of the NCAA tournament at the end of that season. After two years at Arizona, Mr. Arenas entered the 2001 NBA draft. He was passed over in the first round and was not selected until the Golden State Warriors took him with the thirty- first pick. Again, the low expectations of others fueled Mr. Arenas’ drive to succeed, and he ultimately proved them wrong when he became the first player from his 2001 rookie class to be chosen as an NBA all-star. After spending much of his first season with the Warriors on the injured list, Mr. Arenas emerged as a star of the team in his second season and won the league’s most improved player award. After signing with the Washington Wizards in 2003, Mr. Arenas was selected as a reserve player for the NBA all-star game in 2005, but was disappointed in 2006 when the Eastern Conference coaches failed to vote him in,9 and he played only as a substitute for an injured player. Once again, however, his disappointment fueled his drive to succeed, and he excelled during the 2006-2007 season, ultimately being selected as a starter for the 2007 all-star game. After the 2007-2008 season, Mr. Arenas re-negotiated a new, six-year contract with the Wizards. He negotiated his contract without the assistance of an agent, something unheard of in the NBA for a player of his stature. Significantly, he accepted a salary of about 8% less than what the Wizards originally offered, so that the team would have more space under its salary-cap to sign other players and build a squad that could contend in the playoffs. 9 For the all-star game, each conference’s five starting players are selected by fan ballot, while the seven reserve players are selected by the coaches in the conference. 5 B. Mr. Arenas as Friend and Father Mr. Arenas’ upbringing also instilled in him an appreciation for the importance of family and friends. He is universally described as a “family man,”10 a “hands-on dad,” and a “loving, doting father”11 to his three young children — daughter Izela Semaya (age four), son Alijah Amani (age three), and daughter Hamiley Penny (age four months) — whom he raises with his fiancée, Laura Govan, at their home in Great Falls, Virginia. He insists on taking his children to school whenever he is not travelling, and when he talks about his kids — which is often — “you can’t help but see the feelings of love and joy in his eyes.”12 Mr. Arenas’ days revolve around spending time with his children, working out and playing basketball, and performing regular-guy tasks like doing household chores and running errands. He is the rare superstar athlete who shies away from the fast-lane lifestyle and who is more likely to be seen pushing a shopping cart at Costco (where a friend of undersigned counsel recently told me she saw and chatted with him) than hitting trendy restaurants or clubs. While Mr. Arenas certainly has the resources to live a much faster life, that is not the life for him.13 Mr. Arenas is universally known as “regular, normal and unassuming.”14 The press routinely remarks on his “everyman accessibility,”15 and those who work with him know him as a “real person” with real emotions who is able to “truly connect[] to people.”16 Mr. Arenas does 10 Letter of Willie Stafford, a professional chef who has interacted extensively with Mr. Arenas over the past ten years, away from the public spotlight (Ex.

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