Barkley settles up with DA

By Jeff German

Thursday, May 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

District Attorney David Roger is closing the book on the Charles Barkley case, leaving Barkley one workbook away from putting an embarrassing gambling debt completely behind him.

After hearing that Barkley had paid a required $40,000 fee to his bad check unit, Roger said he was dropping his criminal case against the former NBA star.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it,” Roger said.

Wynn Las Vegas had asked the district attorney to pursue the case last week to help the Strip resort collect a $400,000 gambling debt from Barkley. The resort also filed a lawsuit against Barkley in District Court to recover the money.

On Tuesday, a $400,000 cashier’s check from Barkley arrived, but prosecutors were still awaiting the additional 10 percent fee charged by the bad check unit for all cases it handles. The unit is self-funded and the fees go toward the unit’s operational costs.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski, who runs the bad check unit, said Barkley wired the fee to Las Vegas at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday.

All that’s left for Barkley to do now is pay a $100 bank processing fee and complete a workbook under the district attorney’s restitution program, “How to Bounce Back From a Bad Check.” Gambling debts in Nevada are treated as bad checks.

Zadrowski said his office would mail the workbook to Barkley.

Barkley, a TNT cable network basketball analyst, acknowledged on national TV that he had “screwed up” by not paying back the four $100,000 gambling markers the Wynn issued to him in October.