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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Stabbing Sends ‘Saved by the Bell’ Actor to Prison

(CN) - Dustin Diamond, best known as the charmingly dorky sidekick Screech on the 1990s sitcom "Saved by the Bell," will report to prison for four months starting Sunday for stabbing a man in a Christmas brawl in a Wisconsin bar.

The Associated Press reported that Diamond, 38, apologized at the Ozaukee County court hearing Thursday, in which Judge Paul Malloy also handed the actor an additional 15 months of probation for concealed-weapon and disorderly-conduct convictions.

A jury reportedly declined to convict on the heavier felony charge at the end of Diamond's three-day trial last month.

Footage obtained by the celebrity gossip site TMZ showed Diamond holding a knife during a fight between another patron and Diamond's girlfriend, Amanda Schutz, that got the pair arrested early on Dec. 26.

Schutz was reportedly fined $500 for disorderly conduct.

Diamond claimed to have stabbed a man by accident as he tried to stave off his girlfriend's attacker while a crowd formed to gawk, the AP said.

Judge Malloy said at a hearing that the sentence "has to send a message to the community that we're just not going to live like this," the wire reported.

While his co-stars from the family-friendly "Saved by the Bell" have mostly gone on to enjoy continued success in the entertainment industry, Diamond name has been a bigger fixture in headlines than film credits.

Diamond released a sex tape in 2006 and published a tell-all in 2009 called "Behind the Bell."

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