Henry Ruggs III working from prison for $2.50 an hour
When Alabama wide receiver Henry Ruggs III entered the NFL as the 12th selection in the 2020 draft, he signed a four-year, $16.672 million contract that included a $9.685 signing bonus.
Less than four years later, Ruggs makes $2.50 an hour working in Carson City, Nevada, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In May, Ruggs pleaded guilty to one count of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or controlled or prohibited substance resulting in death and one count of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter after reaching a plea arrangement with the Clark County (Nevada) District Attorney’s Office.
In August, Judge Jennifer Schwartz of the 8th Judicial Court chose to follow the plea agreement and sentenced Ruggs to from 36 to 120 months in prison for the first count and six months in prison for the second count. The sentences are being served concurrently.
The State of Nevada contended Ruggs was at fault in a deadly accident that occurred in Las Vegas at 3:39 a.m. Nov. 2, 2021. That’s when a Corvette driven by Ruggs struck a Toyota RAV4 driven by 23-year-old Las Vegas resident Tina Tintor. Tintor and her dog died in the wreck.
Ruggs is serving his sentence at Stewart Conservation Camp.
Near the Nevada capital of Carson City, Stewart Conservation Camp has a capacity of 360 inmates and a staff of 15 Nevada Department of Corrections employees.
Most of the inmates at Stewart Conservation Camp are assigned to fire crews working with the Nevada Division of Forestry, which has 22 personnel at the prison.
Some inmates work at the Silver State Industries ranch, which grows alfalfa, operates a dairy and raises cattle. Ranch inmates also work training horses for adoption through the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported this week that Ruggs is earning $2.50 an hour working in government offices in Carson City. He also earns work credits that could take time off his maximum sentence of 10 years, but do not apply until he has served his minimum sentence of three years.
Before Ruggs was released by the Raiders on the same day as the wreck occurred, the NFL team had paid the wide receiver $11.019 million, according to the sports financial website spotrac.com, with most of that in the signing bonus.
Originally, Ruggs had been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and/or controlled or prohibited substance resulting in death, driving under the influence of alcohol and/or controlled or prohibited substance resulting in death or substantial bodily harm, two counts of reckless driving resulting in death or substantial bodily harm and possession of a gun under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson had said Ruggs could have been sentenced to more than 50 years in prison if convicted of all the original charges at a trial. But Wolfson later accepted a plea arrangement because of concerns the central piece of evidence in the case – the blood-test results — might be suppressed.
RELATED: WHY DID HENRY RUGGS III GET A PLEA DEAL AFTER BEING CHARGED IN A DEADLY WRECK?
The Las Vegas police department reported tests on Ruggs at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada within two hours of the accident showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.161 percent. The legal limit in Nevada is 0.08 percent.
Law-enforcement authorities said Ruggs’ Corvette was traveling at 156 mph 2.5 seconds before impact and 127 mph at the time of the collision.
The Clark County Office of the Coroner determined Tintor died from “thermal injuries due to a motor-vehicle collision.” The Coroner’s Office also determined that significant conditions contributing to Tintor’s death “were inhalation of products of combustion, fractures of the nasal bones, right-sided ribs and left forearm, and a left hemothorax.” (A hemothorax is a collection of blood in the space between the chest wall and the lung.)
After his bail was set at $150,000 on Nov. 3, 2021, Ruggs was released into an electronic-monitoring program.
The original date for the preliminary hearing in Ruggs’ case had been Dec. 16, 2021, and it was rescheduled to March 10, May 19 and Sept. 7 in 2022 and Feb. 1 and May 4 in 2023 without ever taking place.
The delays were caused by the wait for a 47-page police report, a defense request for more time to inspect the evidence, a dispute over judges and court assignment and a challenge to the legality of the blood draw that yielded incriminating evidence after Ruggs declined to submit to a field sobriety test.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.