Dwight Gooden, former All Star pitcher, was released from the Gainesville Correctional Institution on Thursday, November 9, 2006 at approximately 8:46 a.m.

With his time in jail and the secure drug rehab center, Dwight Gooden spent a total of 7 months in prison before walking free. He was sentenced to a total sentence of one year and one day.

In April of last year, Dwight Gooden chose to go to jail rather than accept the offer of parole. If he had violated that probation, he would have had to spend five years in prison.

At the time of his arrest and subsequent sentencing, Gooden was serving a three-year probation for walking away from police during a drunk driving stop. At that time, he failed a drug test and informed his probation officer that he was using cocaine.

Dwight Gooden, now 41, was a four-time All Star. He had won the NL Rookie of the Year in 1984 and had also won the NL Cy Young Award in 1985 while playing for the New York Mets. He retired in 2001. During his playing days, Gooden had also pitched for the New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Devil Days.

This isn’t the first time Gooden has run into trouble with the law. He has had numerous drug related incidents for which he had gotten into trouble. In 1994, Gooden was suspended for 60 days for testing positive for cocaine while he was playing for the Mets. While suspended, he again tested positive for cocaine and was sidelined for most of the 1995 playing season.