Kenneth L. Wainstein (O'Melveny & Myers LLP)

Hiring Kenneth Wainstein appears to be the best decision made by Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas.

On Friday, Superior Court Judge Robert Morin sentenced Arenas to 30 days in a halfway house and two years of probation, a lighter sentence than the plea agreement negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia.

Arenas was charged with carrying a pistol without a license stemming from a well-publicized Dec. 21, 2009, incident in which he brought weapons into the locker room of the professional basketball team.

In January, the Wizards star struck a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s office that Wainstein once headed. Wainstein spent 19 years at the Justice Department in a number of key roles, including U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2004 to 2006. Wainstein is now a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP.

Under the plea agreement, Arenas pleaded guilty to the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The plea deal called for a jail sentence of six to 24 months, with probation, a split sentence or incarceration possible, although the government has agreed to seek a sentence at the low end of that range.

“I’d like to say, I’m really sorry this happened, and I wake up every day wishing it didn’t,” Arenas told the court, according to The Washington City Paper.

UPDATE: Wainstein released the following statement:

“We are very gratified with the outcome of today’s sentencing proceeding. Judge Morin’s decision was fair and measured; it reflected a deep understanding of the relevant facts and equities; and it carefully took into account both the facts relating to Mr. Arenas’ offense and the evidence of Mr. Arenas’ good character.  The result was a sentence that serves justice very well.

Mr. Arenas is grateful to the Court, and looks forward to serving the community and once again being a force for good in the District of Columbia.”

Kenneth L. Wainstein (O'Melveny & Myers LLP)

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has made some pretty poor decisions in the past month, but selecting Ken Wainstein as his attorney is not one of them, according to Marisa M. Kashino at Washingtonian magazine.

Among the list of items that “Arenas isn’t scoring many points for good judgment” for are bringing handguns into the Wizards locker room and inappropriate Tweets, according to Kashino. Despite these less-than-stellar decisions, hiring Wainstein might help keep Arenas out of future trouble and help him avoid jail time. Wainstein spent 19 years at the Justice Department in a number of key roles, including U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2004-2006.

Although the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia charged Arenas with with one count of carrying a pistol without a license, the Wizards star struck a deal with the office that Wainstein once headed. Under the plea agreement, Arenas pleaded guilty to the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. However, the plea deal calls for a jail sentence of six to 24 months, with probation, a split sentence or incarceration possible, although the government has agreed to seek a sentence at the low end of that range. Sentencing is set for March 26.

Kashino praises Arenas’ decision to hire Wainstein, as he “certainly knows his way around the U.S. Attorney’s office.” In addition, Wainstein, who is now a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, “has been building a practice as a leader in the emerging subject of national-security law,” according to Kashino.

While Wainstein has never represented an athlete before, according to Kashino, he appears to be handling his first athlete-client well.

Gilbert Arenas gestures in the huddle with teammates before the game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 5 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)

Last week we asked the question, ” Can Ken Wainstein keep Gilbert Arenas under control?” Today, the answer appears to be, “Yes.”

The Washington Wizards guard has reached a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, which Wainstein once headed, The Washington Post reports.

The agreement will keep Arenas out of jail following a well publicized incident in which he brought weapons into the locker room of the professional basketball team. Arenas was charged with one county of carrying a gun without a license.

Wainstein is a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and a former head of the National Security Division at DOJ.

After taking on Arenas as a client a couple of weeks ago, Wainstein had to conduct damage control, after a photo appeared of the guard pretending to shoot at his team mates with his fingers, and other incidetns.

Arenas this afternoon will plead guilty before D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin, who will decide on Arenas’s sentence, The Post reports.

The NBA has suspended Arenas indefinitely without pay until its own investigation is complete. He has four years left on his six-year, $111 million contract with the Wizards, according to The Post.

UPDATE: Arenas had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of carrying a pistol without a license. Although the charge carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, the plea deal calls for a jail sentence of six to 24 months, with probation, a split sentence or incarceration permissible, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Arenas will be sentenced March 6 at 2:30 p.m., according to the release.

Kenneth L. Wainstein (O'Melveny & Myers LLP)

Former Justice Department heavyweight Kenneth L. Wainstein, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, is representing Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas as the basketball star struggles to explain to prosecutors and the public why he brought four unloaded guns into the team’s locker room at the Verizon Center — then continued to joke about it.

Wainstein, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and ex-head of the National Security Division at DOJ, told the Blog of Legal Times that Arenas hired him within the past week or two. Arenas had left the weapons for teammate Javaris Crittenton as a challenge after Crittenton had threatened to shoot Arenas in his previously wounded knee, prompting Crittenton to load a bullet into the chamber of his own gun, according to news reports.

But since then, Arenas was photographed pretending to shoot at his teammates with his fingers and sending out a flippant Twitter post. (Arenas’s Twitter account is no longer available online).

“At some point, a lawyer needs to ask himself whether he is the right person to handle a client’s case if the client isn’t listening to the advice he is giving him,” an unidentified former D.C. prosecutor told the Blog of Legal Times.

Gilbert Arenas gestures in the huddle with teammates before the game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 5 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)

“In any relationship you have to have mutual respect if it’s going to work, and we’ve had that from the beginning,” Wainstein said in an interview with the BLT of Arenas. “We have a strong mutual understanding about how to move forward.”

The NBA on Wednesday suspended Arenas indefinitely without pay until its investigation is complete. The U.S. Attorney’s office is also investigating the matter. The weapons were a violation of NBA rules and D.C. ordinances.

Wainstein was an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1989 to 2001, in both the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia. In 2001, he was appointed director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

The following year he joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation as general counsel to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, whom he later served as  chief of staff. In 2004 he became the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and in 2006 was confirmed by the Senate to head the newly created National Security Division at DOJ.

Arenas on Monday met with D.C. authorities regarding the incident and released the following statement:

“I appreciated the opportunity to meet with law enforcement officials today. As the person who caused this trouble in the first place, I thought it was my duty to be the first witness to come forward and meet with the prosecutors and detectives. I told my attorney I wanted to get in for an interview as soon as we could arrange it, and that was today.

I told the detectives and prosecutors the whole story about my storing the unloaded guns at the Verizon Center and what I was intending to do when I took them out of my locker on December 21st.

As I have said before, I had kept the four unloaded handguns in my house in Virginia, but then moved them over to my locker at the Verizon Center to keep them away from my young kids. I brought them without any ammunition into the District of Columbia, mistakenly believing that the recent change in the DC gun laws allowed a person to store unloaded guns in the District.

On Monday, December 21st, I took the unloaded guns out in a misguided effort to play a joke on a teammate. Contrary to some press accounts, I never threatened or assaulted anyone with the guns and never pointed them at anyone.

Joke or not, I now recognize that what I did was a mistake and was wrong. I should not have brought the guns to DC in the first place, and I now realize that there’s no such thing as joking around when it comes to guns — even if unloaded.

I am very sorry for the effect that my serious lapse in judgment has had on my team, my teammates, the National Basketball Association and its fans. I want to apologize to everybody for letting them down with my conduct, and I promise to do better in the future.

I also want to thank the detectives and prosecutors on the case for the professionalism and courtesy they showed me during the interview today. I stand ready to continue to give my full cooperation to them and to the League as they investigate this incident.”

Wainstein also released a statement following the meeting.

“This afternoon, Gilbert Arenas voluntarily met with federal prosecutors at the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department to explain the circumstances surrounding the presence of his unloaded firearms at the Verizon Center last month.

From the outset of this incident, Mr. Arenas has been fully cooperative with the investigation. He acknowledged his possession of the guns when questioned by Washington Wizards team officials; he immediately offered and relinquished the guns to Wizards security personnel; and he had me proactively reach out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and make an immediate self-disclosure about the guns.

Consistent with that cooperative approach, Mr. Arenas felt it important that we meet with law enforcement at the first possible opportunity so that he could tell the full story. Over the course of a two-hour interview this afternoon, Mr. Arenas answered every question asked of him.

Mr. Arenas has been constrained in his public comment about these circumstances out of concern that he not do anything to interfere with the ongoing law enforcement investigation. Please understand that his public comments will continue to be limited as long as the investigation continues. Nevertheless, now that he has completed his interview, Mr. Arenas wishes to make the following statement about last month’s events and today’s interview.”