Coleman pleads no contest to disorderly conduct

 DETROIT (AP) -- Charlotte Hornets forward Derrick Coleman pleaded no contest Monday to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from an incident in a Detroit restaurant.

 Coleman paid a $100 court fine and has to run a free basketball clinic for underprivileged children in the city, a 36th District Court judge ruled.

 Last year, Coleman was accused of urinating in front of patrons at Intermezzo Italian Ristorante and was charged with disorderly conduct.

 Coleman, 33, said he was in the restaurant with boxer Thomas Hearns and Indiana Pacers guard Jalen Rose in the early morning hours of Aug. 7 when he spilled a drink on his pants and stood to wipe it off. An employee told police Coleman urinated on the floor and left.

 "I still deny it," Coleman told the Detroit Free Press outside court Monday.

 Coleman also received six months probation.

 Coleman's attorney, James Feinberg, said Coleman agreed to plead no contest because of a civil lawsuit pending in Wayne County Circuit Court. A lawyer for Intermezzo filed the suit seeking damages in excess of $25,000.

 Feinberg also said Coleman had the "inability to recall all of the necessary events" from the Aug. 7 incident.

 It wasn't Coleman's first brush with the law. In April 1998, Coleman was arrested outside of Chuck's Millionaires Club in Detroit on a charge of interfering with police business. He pleaded no contest in that case and agreed to donate $5,000 worth of canned goods to area food banks.

 In February, Coleman was acquitted by a Charlotte judge of a driving while intoxicated charge. That ended a criminal case stemming from an Oct. 27 crash that injured three people, including Hornets teammate Eldridge Recasner.