Troubled ex-KFAN personality Dubay sentenced, avoids jail for beating woman

Onetime sports talk radio personality Jeff Dubay avoided being sent to jail Thursday for beating a woman after an argument about him bringing another woman to a Cottage Grove house he shared with the victim.

Dubay, 50, was sentenced by Washington County District Judge Susan Miles to five years of supervised probation and had an 18-month prison term stayed and 120 days in jail suspended while he undergoes substance abuse treatment.

Miles also gave Dubay, whose years of drug abuse have gotten him in trouble with the law, a long list of must-dos to avoid incarceration. It includes completing treatment; turning over a DNA sample; abstaining from use of firearms, illicit drugs or alcohol; submitting to random testing, and undergoing psychological evaluation.

The prosecution had said upon Dubay's pleading guilty in December to felony third-degree assault that it would seek to have him jailed for 120 days for the attack on Aug. 2, which left the victim with a large bump near one eye and a tooth knocked out.

Defense attorney Rebecca Waxse said Dubay did not speak during sentencing, but "I spoke for him about how well he's doing in treatment."

When police arrived at the home in the 8000 block of Jensen Avenue S., a woman outside told them another woman was being attacked inside. The victim came out and told police the home was hers, that she and Dubay have had sex there in the past, and that she would get upset when he would bring other women there, records show.

She asked Dubay to tell the other woman to leave. He became angry, shoved his victim to the floor and punched her in the face several times, police said. Upon questioning, Dubay said he was defending himself.

Dubay had been a longtime co-host with Paul Allen on KFAN Radio, the Twin Cities' leading sports talk outlet. Dubay was fired after being arrested in 2008 for cocaine possession. He was convicted and entered two treatment programs but failed to complete them.

In 2010, he was ordered to spend 87 days in the Ramsey County workhouse after admitting he again used cocaine in May of that year.

Dubay returned to the airwaves on 1500 ESPN but was let go after a year in 2014 in a cost-cutting move.

In August 2016, Dubay was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years' probation for drug possession.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482