(AP) — Former North Carolina State basketball coach Sidney Lowe has pleaded guilty to failing to file his North Carolina tax returns for three years.
Lowe entered his plea in Wake County District Court before Judge Margaret Eagles.
He received a suspended 45-day jail sentence, was placed on 36 months of unsupervised probation, must complete 100 hours of community service within the year and must pay more than $79,000 in restitution plus a $2,000 fine.
In a statement announcing the plea, the state Department of Revenue said the 53-year-old Lowe, currently an assistant with the NBA's Utah Jazz, didn't file returns from 2009-11 — the last three years he coached the Wolfpack.
The agency says Lowe didn't file his state tax returns for those years even after he was contacted about it — but he did file them prior to his court date.
Lee Turner, Lowe's Raleigh-based attorney, told The Associated Press that his client "has been very embarrassed by this from the beginning" and attributed it to Lowe not paying attention to detail.
"I assure you this is something that is never going to happen again," Turner said.
The department says Lowe received roughly $962,000 in income in 2009 and $953,000 in 2010 from N.C. State and roughly $659,000 in 2011 from the school and the Jazz, who hired him after he resigned as the Wolfpack's coach that year.
At N.C. State, Lowe was paid a base salary of around $210,000 per year. That was boosted to $760,000 with television and radio commitments, and with bonuses and endorsements could have been up to $900,000 a year.