TORRANCE, Calif. -- Former UCLA basketball star Darrell Allums was sentenced Friday to nine years in state prison for robbing eight pizza deliverymen in 1987.
Allums, convicted in March of seven counts of armed robbery and one count of non-armed robbery, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge William R. Hollingsworth.
Allums, 30, could receive an additional two years in prison if convicted in a separate case of possession of cocaine, said Deputy District Attorney Julie Sulman. That case is set for trial June 22.
Sulman said that Allums, usually armed with a screwdriver or knife, stole cash and soft drinks from eight Domino's pizza deliverymen during a 1987 robbery spree in Torrance, Gardena, Long Beach and several other communities.
Allums committed most of the robberies while free on his own recognizance in the cocaine case.
Allums acted as his own attorney at his two-week trial, telling jurors, 'I am not a robber. I am innocent of these crimes.'
He argued that he was the victim of faulty identifications by the deliverymen and of a 'vindictive' police investigator.
The jury that convicted Allums deadlocked on four other counts of armed robbery and two other counts of non-armed robbery, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial on those charges.
Sulman decided later not to retry Allums on the deadlocked counts.
Allums was a 6-foot-9 backup center on the UCLA team that advanced to the NCAA finals in 1980 and lost to Louisville.
He was later drafted by the Dallas Mavericks, but was cut after just 22 games. Allums then played overseas in the Philippines and Switzerland.
