Mayweather will serve 90-day prison sentence
Floyd Mayweather has been sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to a domestic violence charge and no contest to two harassment charges.
The boxing champion, who has a perfect 42-0 ring record and has dodged jail in previous domestic violence cases in Las Vegas and Michigan, was sentenced on Wednesday.
The case stemmed from a hair-pulling, punching and arm-twisting argument with his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris while two of their children watched in September 2010.
‘Punishment is appropriate,’ Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa said after a prosecutor complained that Mayweather has been in trouble before and hasn’t faced serious consequences.
‘No matter who you are, you have consequences to your actions when they escalate to this level of violence.’
Good behavior could knock several weeks off Mayweather’s sentence, but he will likely serve most of the sentence which is set to begin on January 6.
Mayweather and his manager Leonard Ellerbe declined to comment outside the courtroom.
The sentence raises further doubts about a long-awaited showdown between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who each have their backers for claims to being the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter.
A long-awaited fight between the two men regarded as among the best of their generation has been delayed by stalling techniques and verbal sparring.
The two men have a defamation lawsuit pending in Las Vegas federal court stemming from statements by Mayweather that he suspects Pacquiao was taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Mayweather returned in September from a 16-month lay-off to continue his undefeated record with a controversial knockout of Victor Ortiz in Las Vegas.
Mayweather’s promoters have a May 5 date reserved against an as-yet unnamed opponent at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. But if Mayweather is jailed until the end of March, it could cut into the usual eight-plus weeks he takes to train.
Mayweather, 34, stood still in a striped olive vest and showed no reaction as the judge sentenced him to six months in the Clark County jail then suspended half the term.
She gave him credit for three days previously served in jail and ordered him to complete 100 hours of community service, pay a $2,500 fine and complete a yearlong domestic violence counseling programme.
The plea deal he accepted avoided trial on felony and misdemeanor that could have got Mayweather 34 years in state prison if he was convicted on all counts.
Saragosa said she was persuaded to jail Mayweather following his admission that he hit Harris and twisted her arm, and that two of their children, aged nine and 10, witnessed the attack.
Mayweather threatened to kill or make Harris ‘disappear’, Saragosa said, and their 10-year-old son ran from the house and jumped a back gate to fetch security. Mayweather had taken cellphones belonging to Harris and the two boys.
‘Things could have gotten more out of hand than they did,’ the judge said.
Luzaich cited three previous domestic violence arrests for scuffles involving Harris, with whom Mayweather has three children, and three cases involving another woman with whom Mayweather has one child.
Mayweather also is expected to plead no contest next week to a separate misdemeanor harassment charge involving a 21-year-old homeowner association security guard who was poked in the face during an argument about parking tickets placed on cars outside Mayweather’s house.
Mayweather’s lawyer, Karen Winckler, said she may appeal what she called the unusual sentence handed down Wednesday.
In court, she called Mayweather ‘a champion in many areas’ and aired a list of his good deeds, including buying toys for children for Christmas and promising to donate $100,000 to breast cancer research by the end of December.
Winckler argued that the public would benefit more if Mayweather performed 100 hours of community service with children.
Mayweather is also on the hook for 40 hours of community service with the Las Vegas Habitat for Humanity Project under a South Carolina federal judge’s order for dodging a deposition in a music rights lawsuit.
Mayweather has a January 31 deadline on that court order. Habitat for Humanity official Catherine Barnes said Wednesday that Mayweather had not started to log the hours.
Mayweather goes by the nickname ‘Money’ and was guaranteed $25million for the Ortiz fight that won him the WBC’s welterweight belt. Mayweather earned more than $20m in a previous fight against Shane Mosley.
Mayweather has been arrested several times since 2002 in battery and violence cases in Las Vegas and in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich.
He was convicted in 2002 of misdemeanor battery stemming from a fight with two women at a Las Vegas nightclub. He received a suspended one-year jail sentence and was ordered to undergo impulse-control counseling.
He was fined in Grand Rapids in February 2005 and ordered to perform community service after pleading no contest to misdemeanor assault and battery for a bar fight.
He was acquitted by a Nevada jury in July 2005 after being accused of hitting and kicking Harris during an argument outside a Las Vegas nightclub.
He was acquitted again in October of misdemeanor allegations that he threatened two homeowner association security guards during a parking ticket argument.
Mayweather also faces a civil lawsuit in Las Vegas from two men who allege he orchestrated a shooting attack on them outside a skating rink in 2009. Police have never accused Mayweather of firing shots and he has never been criminally charged in the case.