Ron Behagen of the Kansas City-Omaha Kings shoots a layup against Don Nelson #19 during a game played in 1974 at the Boston Garden in Boston, Mass. (credit: Dick Raphael/NBAE via Getty Images)
ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – Ron Behagen had 290 steals during the course of his seven-year NBA career, but none were as costly as the 40 times he stole money from an Atlanta-area woman suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Behagen, 60, plead guilty and was sentenced Thursday for stealing money on 40 separate occasions from a seriously ill 68-year-old woman between April and June of 2011, totaling $7,140.
In the spring of last year, Behagen, a journeyman who played for eight teams including the Atlanta Hawks, obtained the woman’s ATM card from Valla Rider, a friend of his, who also served as the woman’s caretaker in Sandy Springs, Ga., according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.
In a three-month period, Behagen withdrew money from the woman’s account 40 times, all of the transactions being recorded on the bank’s surveillance camera. It wasn’t until the woman’s ex-husband began to notice the transactions on the bank statement that police were notified of the unauthorized bank withdrawals, according to the DA’s office.
Behagen was charged with a single count of financial transaction card fraud. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and has been ordered to pay $3,570 in restitution. In August of last year, Rider plead guilty to a charge of financial transaction card fraud. She was sentenced to probation and also ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of restitution.
