DECATUR - Former Pro Bowl receiver Andre Rison was released from jail Monday, after spending almost a month locked up for failing to pay child support for more than two years.<br>
<br>
Rison, who said he has a chance to play football in Michigan with the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League, paid $10,000 of the $127,000 he owes to a woman with whom he has two sons.<br>
<br>
In a hearing at DeKalb County Superior Court, Rison, who spent 12 seasons with Indianapolis, Atlanta, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Green Bay, Kansas City and Oakland, requested his release.<br>
<br>
Rampage spokesman Andy Lopusnak confirmed Monday that the team has invited Rison to try out.<br>
<br>
``Look at his credentials. If he can still play, there's an interest,'' Lopusnak said.<br>
<br>
Rison, 37, was sentenced to jail on Dec. 8 until he pays $127,000 to a woman with whom he has two sons. Raycoa Handley claimed he hadn't paid his $3,500-a-month child support since August 2002.<br>
<br>
Judge Cynthia Becker said Rison could leave jail if he made the $10,000 payment. The judge also stipulated that if he received a signing bonus from his new team, half of it would go to Handley, the mother of his 18-year-old and 16-year-old sons, said Randall Kessler, Handley's attorney.<br>
<br>
Kessler said attorneys were working on reducing the monthly obligation to $1,000 per month, but added that Rison had made no effort to make any payments.<br>
<br>
``It behooves him to borrow the money to pay it because we're not going away,'' Kessler said.<br>
<br>
Rison left the DeKalb County Jail at about 6 p.m.<br>
<br>
``Andre loves his boys, he's always cared for them and he wants nothing more than to get back on the right track, get them back in his life and pay them everything that he owes,'' said Rison's attorney, Max Richardson Jr.<br>
<br>
Rison, a five-time Pro Bowl selection who was MVP of the 1994 Pro Bowl, last played in the NFL in 2000 with Oakland. He was suspended for four games in 2001 for a repeat violation of the league's substance abuse policy, and was out of football until this past August, when he joined the Toronto Argonauts and played five games with the CFL team.
