Stone, #21 at right, during a game in 2008. Photo by Russell Conroy.

4:00pm | Jerry Stone, a former star running back at Lakewood High School, was sentenced to six years and four months in state prison today after pleading no contest to shooting at rival gang members in an August incident last year, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

Stone, 18, was 17 at the time but prosecutors charged him as an adult. On August 21, 2009, he drove a burgundy Cadillac as Lawrence Steven Blake, 32, opened fire on two rival gang members. Both pleaded no contest to shooting from a motor vehicle and admitted gang ties. All other charges – including two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of permitting another to shoot from a vehicle, one count of permitting a loaded firearm in a vehicle, one count of residential first-degree burglary and one count of hit and run – were dismissed as a part of the negotiated plea.

Compton Superior Court Judge Patrick Connolly handed down identical sentences to the two defendants.

Stone scored 18 touchdowns as a running back for the Lakewood High football team in 2008, and was poised to have a very successful senior season when the shooting took place. He never played a game last year and is likely done with what could have been a promising career. Several Division One college programs had expressed interest in the running back prior to the shooting.