Painter Immendorf Sentenced

Terminally ill artist Jörg Immendorf was pronounced guilty of cocaine possession and sentenced to a 10-month suspended sentence Wednesday. Although the minimum penalty for such a crime is one year in Germany, the prosecution agreed that the gravity of the case warranted a lower sentence. The internationally-renowned painter will thus be able to retain his professorship at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He would have been barred from the civil servant's job if he had received a sentence of a year or more. Immendorf suffers from the incurable ALS neurodegenerative disease.