Disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy is hoping for the best and fearing the worst as he awaits what may be the inevitable – a long prison stint for rigging games, his ex-wife told The Post.
In her first interview, Kim Donaghy said Tim was literally sick with shame.
“He’s very thin,” she said. “He throws up a lot. He apologizes and apologizes and apologizes. He’s constantly hugging the kids. It’s like it’s his last day every time he sees them.”
Yet, whatever happens at his sentencing tomorrow, Kim and Tim Donaghy want to spare their little girls the stark reality of their father’s fate.
“We’ve told them together what’s happening,” Kim Donaghy said. “We’ve said he had a job and he was not allowed to gamble and he did and it was against the law and that there’s a very good chance that he might be sent away to a day camp.”
And, like the young kids they are, the four girls, who are between 6 and 11, hardly understand what his time away from them will be like.
“They say, ‘Is he going to have a pool?’ We say, ‘Yes.’ They say, ‘Is it going to have a gym?’ We say, ‘Yes.’ They want to know if he can still go outside, we say, ‘Yes, it’s just like day camp.’
“And that’s all we say to them.”
The sentencing guidelines in Donaghy’s case suggest a prison stint of 27 to 33 months.
When Donaghy pleaded guilty last August, he admitted to providing inside information to his co-defendants and to placing bets on games he officiated.
At the sentencing of two co-defendants last week, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Carol Amon selected terms at the long end of the sentencing guidelines.
“I just hope [a long sentence] doesn’t happen. I could really use his support,” said Kim, who lives in Brandenton, Fla. “If he’s incarcerated, I’m on my own with the kids. The kids need him, and I need him.”
The couple was recently divorced, but a source said they remain very close.
“They’ve split up, but they’re amicable. They’re still friends, and they’re both supporting the kids as much as possible,” the source said.
Kim Donaghy confessed to being a little bitter over her husband’s legal predicament.
“He gave [the government] every single thing they wanted immediately,” she said. “I feel like they’re kind of throwing him under the bus. . . . He took one for the team.”