Ex-athlete at BGSU admits theft at carryout

1/15/2002

BOWLING GREEN - A former Bowling Green State University basketball player pleaded guilty yesterday to holding up a local carryout at knifepoint last summer.

Trenton Jackson, Jr., 23, of Bowling Green appeared before Wood County Common Pleas Judge Charles Kurfess, who set sentencing for March 28.

In August, Jackson was indicted by a Wood County grand jury for robbery, possessing criminal tools, and receiving stolen property stemming from a July 22 robbery at the BG Drive Thru on South College Drive.

In exchange for his guilty plea to the felony robbery charge, assistant prosecutor Gary Bishop said he would ask the judge to dismiss the other two charges and would recommend Jackson receive the minimum two-year sentence.

According to police reports, Jackson was dressed in black and wearing an Afro-style wig and a bandana around his face when he held up the carryout shortly after midnight July 22.

As officers rushed to the area, Officer Scott Smith spotted Jackson riding his bicycle on Napoleon Road carrying an overstuffed book bag.

Jackson said he had been playing basketball on campus, but when Officer Smith asked to look inside the bag, Jackson said he wanted to call his parents first.

The officer followed Jackson to his apartment and saw him crouch down by a bush at the complex with his book bag. Behind the bush, officers later found a wig, a knife, a calculator, and a brown paper bag containing $2,149 and a check made out to the store.

Jackson, who was the only senior on last year's Falcon basketball team, has been free on $30,000 bond since August.

He had transferred to BGSU in 1998, a year after he was dismissed from the Ohio State University basketball team. He had been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after an altercation near the Ohio State campus in August, 1997, but was later acquitted.