 In October 2007, Ferrell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.Ferrell's wife and daughter subsequently issued public statements saying the plea deal was due to the stress of the case and severe illness (Ferrell is a 27-year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and suffered a series of strokes following his indictment in 2004).Ferrell was later sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500.