NBA referee goes down by enabling, and an actor enables a dictator
Co-Dependents of the Month:
Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who pleaded guilty to felony charges related to a betting scandal in which he provided picks to co-conspirators as to which team they should bet on in games he officiated. Donaghy, who admitted to a severe gambling compulsion, seemed contrite as he told the judge he was seeing a psychiatrist for his problem and taking antidepressants and anxiety medication (which may or may not be psychotropic in its effects). My bet (so to speak) is he is not an alcoholic as we define it, which dramatically increases the likelihood that his co-conspirators, Thomas Martino and James Battista, are. If correct, his codependency will cost him up to 25 years in prison. Martino and Battista, a professional gambler, could face 20 years.
Actor Sean Penn, who arguably provided moral support for Venezuela’s likely drug-addicted dictator Hugo Chavez by traveling through the Venezuelan countryside with him. While Penn told a crowd, “I came here looking for a great country. I found a great country,” is not the same as saying he found a great government, I would not be overly optimistic about Penn’s ability to think clearly. His marriage to Madonna in the 1980s was marred by violent outbursts against the press, including one in which he beat up a photographer, as well as at least one charge of felony domestic assault, for which the odds of alcoholism are roughly 85% (even though he pled it down to a misdemeanor). This follows stints in Iran and Iraq as a self-styled freelance journalist.