http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/sports/hockey/jordan-hart-derek-boogaard-trial.html 2016-10-07 00:32:26 Player Who Sold Pills to Derek Boogaard Is Sentenced to Probation Jordan Hart, who admitted to providing Boogaard with prescription painkillers, had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a case that has angered Boogaard’s family. === Jordan Hart, a former minor league hockey player who sold thousands of dollars of illegally obtained prescription painkillers to the N.H.L. star Derek Boogaard in the months and weeks before Boogaard died of an overdose in 2011, was sentenced on Thursday to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service. Hart, 33, son of the longtime N.H.L. player In June, after protracted negotiations with prosecutors, who were unable to link Boogaard’s death directly to pills that Hart supplied, Hart pleaded guilty to possession of oxycodone, a misdemeanor. Prosecutors recommended up to six months in jail. The case in Federal District Court for the Southern District in New York, concluding more than five years after Boogaard’s death at the age of 28, has left the Boogaard family seething. Len Boogaard, Derek’s father, said in a letter to Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in August that the reduced charges made “a mockery of the seriousness of the pain inflicted on our family.” He was furious when he saw photos in news reports from the June hearing of Hart smiling afterward. “It is high time that Jordan Hart face consequences, the seriousness of which are aligned with the gravity of the actions he chose to repeatedly undertake merely for his own financial gain,” Len Boogaard wrote. Hart’s attorneys have argued that Hart was an opioid addict, much like Boogaard, when they met. They said that Hart, who has since recovered, has suffered the consequences of his arrest, including media attention and the loss of a job in the financial industry. “Mr. Hart is committed to sharing his painful experience as an addict, as a defendant charged with a narcotics conspiracy, and as a convicted misdemeanant, with other aspiring athletes,” Hart’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the judge before the sentencing. Derek Boogaard, a 6-foot-8-inch enforcer for the Rangers, was found dead in his Minneapolis apartment on May 13, 2011. An autopsy revealed that he had died of an accidental overdose of oxycodone and alcohol. A subsequent examination of his brain showed that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. His life and death were detailed in a Boogaard had obtained a huge amount of Hart admitted to selling prescription painkillers to Boogaard several times. The final instance was about two weeks before Boogaard’s death. Boogaard was on a recess from a rehabilitation center in California when he went to New York and paid Hart $4,000 with a personal check. Boogaard dropped a bag of assorted prescription pills at his Minneapolis apartment and returned to California. Granted another recess from rehabilitation less than two weeks later, Boogaard returned to Minneapolis and died after a night out with friends. Two of his brothers discovered his body atop his bed the next afternoon. It was unclear whether the pills that Boogaard obtained from Hart were among those he took the night of his death. Hart’s attorneys argued that Hart sold Boogaard only Vicodin and Percocet, which contain acetaminophen, and not OxyContin, which does not. Boogaard’s toxicology report did not mention acetaminophen. Len Boogaard had hoped to appear at Thursday’s hearing to read a victim impact statement, but the judge declined the request. Hart’s attorneys, in arguing against allowing Boogaard to address the court, said that he “was not a victim of Mr. Hart’s misdemeanor possession of prescription drugs.” Hart was arrested at the same time as Oscar Johnson, a physician assistant in Utah. Johnson worked with the minor league Utah Grizzlies while The Boogaard family has a wrongful-death lawsuit against the N.H.L. pending in United States District Court in Chicago. The judge in that case ruled earlier this year that the case was pre-empted by collective bargaining but last week allowed amended portions of it to move forward.