Actor Dustin Diamond sentenced to jail, probation in stabbing case

MILWAUKEE – Dustin Diamond, who played the nerdy Screech in the early 1990s U.S. television sitcom "Saved by the Bell," was sentenced on Thursday to four months in jail for a Christmas night barroom stabbing in a Milwaukee suburb. Jurors convicted Diamond, 38, on May 29 of carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct in the incident in which he was accused of stabbing a man with a switchblade knife. He was acquitted of a charge of felony recklessly endangering public safety. Diamond's fiancée, Amanda Schutz, 27, was accused of pushing a woman who was harassing her and Diamond on Christmas night at the Grand Avenue Saloon in Port Washington, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee. Police said Diamond stabbed a man with a switchblade knife during the ensuing fight, causing a non-life-threatening wound. Diamond said he pulled the knife to defend himself and Schutz. Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy also ordered Diamond and Schutz, who was found guilty of disorderly conduct, to pay $1,500 in restitution to the stabbing victim. Diamond, who lives in Port Washington, played socially awkward but brainy student Samuel "Screech" Powers, memorable for his dark and wiry hair, in "Saved by the Bell," which ran from 1989 to 1993. –Reuters