JUDGE CALLS DRUG CASE A SAD TALE

Former athlete, 30, gets two life sentences

Amilcar Butler, whose dazzling play on the basketball court once hinted at
greater things ahead, stood in front of a U.S. District Court judge
yesterday and asked for mercy.

He had played for Aquinas Junior College in 1995 when it went to the
National Junior College Basketball Tournament. Recruiters from some of the
big NCAA programs courted him at the time.

Since then, it's been a string of drug-distribution arrests until he was
caught in a drug sting at a local hotel in 2000. He was charged with taking
$110,000 to a local hotel to buy cocaine from men who were undercover
agents, and he volunteered that he still had enough cash to buy 20 to 30
more kilograms. A federal jury convicted him of two counts, one for
conspiracy and one for possession with intent to distribute 5 kilograms of
cocaine.

Yesterday, after a long string of pre-sentencing motions filled by defense
attorneys and Butler himself, Butler arrived in court in a green prison
jumpsuit for his sentencing hearing. He and his current attorney, Thomas
Drake, tried to find a way to limit the amount of time he would face.

In the end, though, it became obvious which way U.S. District Judge Todd
Campbell was leaning.

The guidelines, the judge said, indicated that the law required a life
sentence for the defendant.

Calmly and deliberately, Butler, 30, apologized for his crimes and asked for
the court's mercy. ''I pray that you do not view the defendant as something
to be shredded and thrown away,'' he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunny Koshy said that the defendant he had
prosecuted was a bright young man who once held plenty of promise. But he
told the judge that Butler had repeatedly made the wrong choices and that a
life in prison was essential for a man who had decided to ''profit by
poison.''

Campbell said it was a sad tale, ''one of the more disquieting cases that I
have had.'' Nevertheless, the law was clear, the judge said. He gave Butler
two life sentences.