Former WNBA star Cappie Pondexter found after going missing following arrest

Former WNBA star Cappie Pondexter was located after friends reported that she went missing after being released from custody Thursday following an arrest in Los Angeles.

Pondexter, who grew up in Chicago and played high school basketball at Marshall, initially refused to provide her name when she was arrested for battery on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. That prompted a first round of media reports that she was missing.

“She’s actually not missing any longer. She’s been released from jail a couple hours ago. ... She was arrested for battery from a private person arrest,” an LAPD spokesman told the Chicago Sun-Times Thursday afternoon.

But shortly after Pondexter was released from custody, reports surfaced on social media that she was missing again. By Thursday evening, her representative Chuck Walton took to Twitter to announce that she’d been found.

“We have located Cappie Pondexter and she is now safe,” Walton said. “We want to thank everyone who helped us get the word out and who sent love and prayers.”

A police report and further details about Pondexter’s arrest weren’t immediately made available. Ricardo Santiago, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, also couldn’t provide any information about the arrest.

Santiago said Pondexter was also scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a bench warrant hearing related to a misdemeanor arrest for public intoxication on Nov. 16, 2019. An arraignment is now set for Friday in that case, which was filed on Jan. 10.

After Pondexter was released from custody Thursday, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association issued a statement Thursday afternoon asking for help locating her.

“We are sharing this out of concern for our fellow WNBPA sister, Cappie Pondexter,” the association tweeted. “If you have any information, please contact authorities. Please help us spread the word and ensure that she is safe.”

Later Thursday, Walton sent the tweet that she had been located.

After being selected second overall in the 2006 WNBA draft by the Mercury, Pondexter went on to be one of the greatest scorers in the league’s history.

Pondexter, 37, spent 13 seasons in the WNBA, playing for five teams. That included a two-season stint with the Sky during which she helped Chicago to the semifinals in 2016.

She’s a two-time WNBA champion and was named the Finals Most Valuable Player in 2007. The seven-time All-Star is the second fastest player to reach 5,000 career points. She ranks fourth in WNBA history for scoring averaging [16.4 points] and has recorded the most 30-point games [20].

Appearing on the “Soul Talk: Tapping Into the Zone” podcast in May, Pondexter, who announced her retirement from the WNBA in a 2019 Instagram post, opened up about her mental health struggles.

“I know this is a sensitive time for a lot of us,” Pondexter said. “And I know a lot of us are feeling like we can’t make it or we can’t go on. I know a lot of us are mentally frustrated or angry or are dealing with all kinds of things we never had to deal with because it’s in the house. So I’m very empathetic about that right now, and I think that my heart is the only place that I can come and that’s just being honest... it’s a really sensitive time [for me], I lost somebody from COVID, and to see the effect it has on the family, it’s like crazy to me, and I don’t know, I just want to make sure everybody’s good at the end of the day.”

Pondexter also discussed the “pain” she felt during the 2018 season when the Sparks waived her — something, she said, she never thought would never happen to her during her career.

“That was a lot of pain for me but going through the system and understanding the business of it, I knew it was time for me to walk away,” she said. “But I was OK with that... you have to be able to move forward. And I think I’ve been really honing in on having patience with myself as I’m transitioning, having patience with other people as I’m transitioning because it’s really easy to get caught up on social media.”