By Chris Walters on June 11, 2004 at 12:33 PM EST

The following press release was issued by the Associated Press late yesterday afternoon:

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Former professional wrestler Richard "Dirty Dick" Van Slater has been sentenced to a year of house arrest followed by two year's probation for stabbing his former girlfriend.

Van Slater was sentenced Tuesday in Pinellas Circuit Court after pleading no contest to one count of aggravated battery in the December stabbing. Besides the house arrest and probation, Slater was ordered to stay away from the victim and pay restitution, fines, and investigative and court costs of more than $1,800.

Slater, 52, was arrested Dec. 27 after he stabbed Theresa Marie Halbert with an 8-inch butcher knife and "watched her bleed" in her home, according to the arrest report from 2003. Prosecutors charged him with aggravated battery. Slater was a professional wrestler who competed mainly in the Southeast for 20 years, using the names "Dirty Dick" and "Mr. Unpredictable." He retired from wrestling in 1996.

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