Madlock gets another time at bat in check case

An apologetic Bill Madlock -- whose stardom as a four-time National League batting champion has been tainted by economic disaster and legal problems -- finally showed up in a Las Vegas courtroom to deal with his bad-check charges.

While Justice of the Peace Doug Smith had issued a no-bail bench warrant last week for the arrest of Madlock, he decided Wednesday to give the onetime baseball great one last chance.

He told Madlock that he had been disappointed by his failure to resolve the case and threatened to toss him into the Clark County Detention Center if it happened again.

Madlock explained that the IRS has his money all locked up and he had to get federal approval for travel funds to come to Las Vegas.

He still owes $3,000 and 200 hours of community service at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada to satisfy the plea bargain that will result in felony bad-check charges eventually being dismissed.

District Attorney Stewart Bell advocated the last chance opportunity for the man who has become the poster boy for the district attorney's new bad-check unit.

Madlock spent several hours Tuesday and Wednesday working on his community service obligation and promised to pay $500 a month on his bill. Another court date has been set for Sept. 12 to see how Madlock has been progressing.

His attorney, Marc Risman, said he expects that Madlock will have completed 30 hours of community service by the end of this week and will be allowed to complete some of his obligation at a Boys and Girls Club near his Connecticut home.

Risman said the money will take awhile to pay off. The former sports legend has been earning money on the baseball card signing circuit and playing in events like charity softball games.

"He has some marketability," the attorney said, blaming Madlock's problems on bad investments and playing during the years before the multimillion dollar contracts.

But Madlock's problems here resulted from a series of bad checks he wrote in casinos, raising speculation that gambling might be a problem.

Madlock has received about every break possible from the district attorney's bad-check unit designed to help businesses collect what is owed from deadbeat check writers.

Criminal charges under the self-funding system are filed only when payment is not forthcoming after an initial warning letter. The system is designed to free up police and prosecutors to deal with more serious crimes.

In Madlock's case, criminal charges had to be filed before he coughed up the thousands he owed for bad checks he wrote at Las Vegas casinos.

But even a felony conviction hanging over his head didn't prompt Madlock to pay the remaining $3,000 to cover expenses for the bad-check unit.

Madlock simply has been a slow learner about Nevada's justice system. Twice before in the case, warrants were issued for Madlock and in both cases it resulted in his arrest -- once in New York and later in Chicago.

He finally showed up in Las Vegas and paid $9,000 of the $12,000 assessment in the case after apparently deciding he wasn't going to avoid the long arm of Nevada law.

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