Adam Abdul-Jabbar, son of NBA Hall of Fame player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was sentenced to six months in jail on November 9 after he stabbed his Southern California neighbor with a hunting knife during an argument over trash cans.
According to the Associated Press, twenty-nine-year-old Adam was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of carrying a knife. His sentence was enhanced for inflicting great bodily injury, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors initially wished to give Adam a seven-year jail sentence and objected to the plea offer. However, Adam later accepted a plea deal from an Orange County Judge. According to the DA, his sentence was stayed until January 7 to allow him to apply for home confinement instead of incarceration.
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Probation officers are set to choose whether he will be given home confinement or incarceration.
Adam and his San Clemente neighbor share a driveway of their homes, and the young man stabbed his elderly neighbor numerous times on June 9 of last year after the man confronted him about not bringing in the trash cans.
Adam stabbed the man in the back of the head, and the man later suffered a fractured skull and almost died from severe blood loss after fainting outside of an emergency room, prosecutors said.
“This slap on the wrist is an absolute miscarriage of justice,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement after the sentencing. “This man nearly bled to death in front of the emergency room doors after being stabbed so violently over and over that his skull was fractured.”
“We believe the complete disregard for human life over a dispute over trashcans is so egregious it warranted prison time,” Spitzer said.
