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Bucs

Ex-Bucs player in jail for probation offense

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published March 17, 2005

TAMPA - Former Bucs defensive lineman Booker Ted Reese avoided an arrest for nearly nine months after a judge issued a warrant for him on a probation violation.

His probation officer, Dale Carney, said he found Reese earlier this month at a halfway house in Jacksonville, called police and now the ex-Buc is at the Orient Road jail, awaiting a court date.

The State Attorney's Office said Wednesday the court date hadn't been set.

Reese, 45, plead guilty to an April 1999 charge in Hillsborough County of solicitation to deliver crack cocaine, a third-degree felony, according to court records. Adjudication was withheld, and a judge sentenced him to probation and an outpatient drug program. Since his conviction, Reese has lived in Jacksonville, where he currently lists his address, jail records show. He's violated his probation five times since the 1999 charge, Hillsborough court records show.

A Hillsborough judge issued a warrant for Reese in June, after Reese failed to provide a verifiable address to his Jacksonville probation officer or submit to a drug test a month earlier, according to court records.

"I wasn't really aware of where he was until recently," Carney said.

Jail records say Hillsborough deputies picked up Reese at the Duval County jail on March 8.

The Bucs chose Reese as their second-round draft pick in 1982. He was a defensive end with the team for three seasons, starting in only seven games. He was later traded to the Rams but released after he tested positive for cocaine in his second season. Other probation violations in Reese's court record include testing positive for cocaine while in a drug treatment program, an arrest for aggravated battery domestic violence and failure to pay court costs.

[Last modified March 17, 2005, 01:05:07]