Fonyo gets conditional sentence

One-time Canadian hero Steve Fonyo has been given an 18-month conditional sentence after pleading guilty to a number of charges in a Surrey, B.C., court.

Fonyo, the one-legged runner who raised $13 million for cancer research in 1984 and 1985, admitted in December to using an unauthorized credit card to purchase $691 in gasoline, defrauding Home Depot with the fraudulent return of an item and to uttering threats against his wife.

He'd been in custody since early November when he failed to come up with $20,000 bail.

Crown prosecutor Brian Shaw suggested the conditional sentence to the court, saying the nine weeks Fonyo has spent in jail appear to have motivated him to behave, and the provincial court judgehearing the case agreed.

Fonyo, 45, earned the Order of Canada for his cross-country charity run, but was stripped of the award in January 2010 after a string of convictions for petty crimes, often fuelled by abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Fonyo married Lisa Greenwood in August on the same Victoria beach where he ended his cross-country run.

He said outside court Tuesday he was looking forward to returning home to his wife.