By: Isabelle Wang
On Friday, August 2, 2024, 45-year-old Ricky Alderete stole and destroyed a Jackie Robinson statue outside a baseball field in Wichita, Kansas. He was sentenced to 15 years of prison for the theft.
Mr. Alderete, who has a criminal record for drug charges and has served prior prison time, was charged in February with felony theft, aggravated criminal damage to property, and providing false information related to the theft of a statue. Jackie Robinson was the first African American professional baseball player to ever play Major League Baseball, in the modern era. The statue was erected in honor of him. The bronze feet of the statue, the only remaining part of the baseball player’s likeness, gained international attention. Initially, there were concerns that the destruction might have been a hate crime because Alderete and Robinson were of different races, but investigators found no evidence to support this. Lt. Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department stated, “Instead, we believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal.”
Surveillance footage from January 25 showed two figures using a concrete saw to cut the statue outside McAdams Park in Wichita before loading it into a truck linked to Mr. Alderete. Pieces of the statue were later discovered in a burning trash can, and it was deemed irreparable. Investigators reviewed text messages that showed Mr. Alderete telling a friend about a stolen bronze chunk weighing 250 to 350 pounds, with one message reading, “I am on my way to the scrap yard now so that we can process the scrap and get paid.” Mr. Alderete admitted to cutting the statue but claimed he was hired by another person and was never paid.
On Friday, Mr. Alderete was sentenced to 162 months for aggravated burglary and 18 months for aggravated criminal damage to property, with sentences running consecutively. Mr. Alderete had also been struggling with a drug addiction that may have motivated the theft. These charges arose from an incident on February 1 when Mr. Alderete fled from the police and broke into a home seeking refuge, telling the occupant he was evading law enforcement. The police had found an abandoned truck that was believed to be used in the crime, and the theft of the statue was captured on a surveillance camera. He also received concurrent sentences for a separate case involving the theft and pawning of a cell phone.
He was ordered to pay $41,500 to League 42, which plans to unveil a new statue. League 42’s founder, Bob Lutz, expressed appreciation for the reconciliation efforts, stating, “We’re sorry to see it didn’t pay dividends with the court, with the sentence, but very grateful that Bob and Ricky made a peace that I haven’t accomplished on any other case.”