The drug case against former Oklahoma State basketball coach Sean Sutton has been dismissed by a judge and his record has been expunged.
Sutton's attorney, Trace Morgan, confirmed Friday that Payne County Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler had granted Sutton's motion to speed up his deferred sentence.
Sutton was arrested in February 2010 after agents from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs said he picked up a shipment under another person's name that included about 40 pills, including the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam and two forms of the stimulant adderall.
The agency had previously placed Sutton in a drug rehab program but, according to court documents, he ended up meeting two people who would become his suppliers after he got out.
Sutton was sentenced a year ago to three years of probation and the possibility he would be cleared of any charges and a felony conviction if he stayed clean through Aug. 9, 2013. He pleaded guilty to four charges tied to illegally obtaining prescription drugs, admitted he had a drug problem and then checked into a rehabilitation center after his arrest.
As part of his plea deal, Sutton agreed to testify against two people who allegedly supplied him with drugs. He was also ordered to pay more than $2,850 in fines, perform 100 hours of community service and complete more drug treatment.
Sutton is the son of Eddie Sutton, the former basketball coach who won more than 800 games in a career that included a stint at the Betty Ford Center to fight an alcohol addiction between his time at Kentucky and his return to Oklahoma State, his alma mater.
Sean Sutton took over the program when his father stepped down following a drunken driving crash in 2006, going 39-29 in two seasons in charge of the Cowboys.
Morgan said he asked the judge to clear Sutton's record because Sutton recently accepted the position of assistant coach at Oral Roberts, where his brother, Scott, is head coach. Previously, Sean Sutton had served as an adviser to the team.
''We were hoping to get Sean started off on a fresh path,'' said Morgan, who added that the district attorney's office had no objection to his request. ''I think Sean has been given an opportunity at Oral Roberts to prove himself again.''
When he agreed to the adviser job at ORU last fall, Sean Sutton said he was ready to re-enter the coaching world and that as a recovering addict, it would be good to have something positive to help occupy his time.
''We're a society of second chances, and our hope is that this will be a testimony to those chances,'' Morgan said.
