Tony Farmer – A Cleveland area high school basketball star saw his promising athletic future crash and burn before his eyes on Tuesday when he was sentenced to three years in jail for the kidnapping and assault of his ex-girlfriend last May.
Tony Farmer, a 6-foot-7 blue chip small forward prospect, was being wooed by the likes of Michigan State, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State, West Virginia, Xavier and Dayton. That mattered little as he was sentenced on counts of kidnapping, assault, robbery and intimidation from an incident that took place in the lobby and parking lot of Andrea Lane’s apartment complex.
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the incident was captured on videotape and showed Farmer repeatedly kicking Lane in the head as she cowered in a corner. Farmer later sent threatening text messages to his ex-girlfriend.
Lane, who had angered Farmer by breaking up with him, asked that he not be sent to prison, but made it clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Farmer’s mother also begged for leniency for her son, testifying that he was a good kid who had been in love and had “made a bad decision.”
A second-team All-State pick at Gar-Field Heights High School last season, Farmer faced the gallery of people gathered in the courtroom when it was his turn to speak, apologizing to Lane, her family and to his own family.
The judge said she would review the sentence after 180 days.
The 18-year-old Farmer, who would have been a high school senior this year, pleaded guilty to the charges in July, but had expected to only be placed on probation. Dressed in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back, he recoiled as the jail sentence was read, immediately crumbling to the floor in anguish.
Farmer became the second elite high school basketball prospect to make the news this week with issues of domestic violence. This past Saturday, Seton Hall commit and Baltimore native Aquille Carr was arrested for allegedly beating up his girlfriend.
