Actor Dustin Diamond sentenced to jail in stabbing case

[June 26, 2015]  By Brendan O'Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Dustin Diamond, who played the nerdy Screech in the early 1990s U.S. television sitcom "Saved by the Bell," was sentenced on Thursday to four months in jail for a Christmas night barroom stabbing in a Milwaukee suburb.

Jurors convicted Diamond, 38, on May 29 of carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct in the incident in which he was accused of stabbing a man with a switchblade knife. He was acquitted of a charge of felony recklessly endangering public safety.

Diamond's fiancée, Amanda Schutz, 27, was accused of pushing a woman who was harassing her and Diamond on Christmas night at the Grand Avenue Saloon in Port Washington, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee.

Police said Diamond stabbed a man with a switchblade knife during the ensuing fight, causing a non-life-threatening wound. Diamond said he pulled the knife to defend himself and Schutz.

"Even though my intentions were to solely defend a loved one, they were never the less the cause of the single most terrifying experience of my entire life," Diamond said in court before he was sentenced.

District Attorney Adam Gerol said that the Diamond and his girlfriend instigated the fight, which was a "mere dust-up" before Diamond pulled out the switchblade.

"We cannot have knives getting whipped out in bars within seconds of a mere pushing and shoving match," he said.

Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy also ordered Diamond and Schutz, who was found guilty of disorderly conduct, to pay $1,500 in restitution to the stabbing victim.

Diamond, who lives in Port Washington, played socially awkward but brainy student Samuel "Screech" Powers, memorable for his dark and wiry hair, in "Saved by the Bell," which ran from 1989 to 1993.

Since then, he has had a number of smaller television roles and appeared on reality programs and game shows.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Bill Trott)

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