Ryan Leaf will spend the next nine months in lockdown addiction treatment as the start of a five-year sentence for breaking into a house to steal prescription painkillers.
Leaf, the No. 2 overall pick of the 1998 NFL draft, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Montana today, but two years of that sentence will be suspended.
District Judge Kenneth Neill issued the sentence after Leaf addressed the court and said he was humiliated and embarrassed by the attention he has brought on himself and his family. Leaf was arrested twice in one weekend in April for stealing painkillers and has been in jail ever since. He told the judge that jail “has been a sanctuary.”
Leaf previously pleaded guilty to stealing prescription painkillers in Texas and remains on probation there as part of a 10-year suspended sentence he received in a plea deal in 2010. Texas and Montana authorities are still determining when Leaf will be forced to answer for probation violations in Texas.