The indictment was handed up Wednesday in Canyon. It charged the 33-year-old former San Diego Chargers quarterback and former West Texas A&M football and golf coach with one count of burglary to a habitation, seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and delivery of a simulated controlled substance.
Canyon police Lt. Dale Davis said Leaf is suspected of breaking into a Canyon apartment on Oct. 30 and stealing the painkiller Hydrocodone, which had been prescribed to an injured football player.
[side note: 'hydrocodone' is a generic drug name and should not be capitalized. Take that, ESPN news services! You've been corrected by a blogger.]
I have two reactions to this:
1. It's sad
2. It's a shame that WSU has to be mentioned by association every time we get a "look at how much Ryan Leaf has screwed up" story.
As an almost-pharmacist, I can also tell you that the courts and the DEA love to prosecute things like this to the fullest extent. Especially when the accused may have been dumb enough to steal a controlled substance from another patient.
It's now safe to assume these were the "personal reasons" for Leaf leaving his coaching position at West Texas A&M last year. It's such a shame, too. Leaf had presumably landed on his feet in Texas. So much so that ESPN ran a story about how he had changed his perspective as a teacher, and was less driven by materialistic things. He had begun to have success leading the simple life. Or maybe not.
So there you have it: another chapter in the tumultuous story of Ryan Leaf. Let's just hope that this is the beginning of last, and that Ryan's name just stays out of the news for a while.