Three years ago, Keith Mills was a convicted felon on house arrest.

At 48, the WMAR television sportscaster from Linthicum had lost his job and been publicly humiliated after breaking into a cancer-stricken neighbor's house and stealing her pills to feed his addiction to prescription painkillers.

After pleading guilty to first-degree burglary in May 2006, Mills was spared jail, but sentenced to nine months on house arrest.

Today Mills is clean and has a new job doing sports for WBAL radio. He also writes for PressBox, a weekly newspaper covering Baltimore sports.

Last week, he was honored by the county's...