Floyd’s guilty plea puts Manny Pacquiao fight in jeopardy
Floyd Mayweather Jr. faces up to 18 months in prison.
Another stumbling block to the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. showdown surfaced Tuesday, further dampening chances of the megabuck bout happening next year.
According to an AP report, Mayweather could be jailed for up to 18 months after deciding to plead guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges in a deal which resolves felony allegations that he battered his ex-girlfriend, court officials said Tuesday.
Mayweather, 34, will face $3,000 in fines and could be sentenced to between two days and 18 months in the Clark County jail after agreeing to plead guilty Wednesday to one count of battery domestic violence and two harassment charges, said Tess Driver, an aide to Clark County District Attorney David Roger.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported the plea deal Tuesday.
It also includes an agreement for Mayweather to plead no contest next week to misdemeanor battery and pay a $1,000 fine for poking a 21-year-old homeowner association security guard in the face during a November 2010 argument about parking tickets on vehicles outside the boxer’s home in an exclusive, suburban Las Vegas community.
Roger and Mayweather’s lawyers did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press.
Mayweather had been facing an evidence hearing Wednesday and a decision by Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa whether to send him to trial on felony grand larceny, coercion and robbery charges, and misdemeanor domestic battery and harassment counts involving ex-girlfriend Josie
Harris.
He could have faced 34 years in state prison if he was convicted of all those charges.
The felony case stemmed from accusations that Mayweather hit and threatened his ex-girlfriend, stole her cell phone and threatened two of their children, then ages 10 and 9, during a September 2010 argument about the woman dating another man.
Mayweather, who uses the nickname “Money,” was acquitted by a Las Vegas judge in October of other misdemeanor harassment charges. Mayweather holds a record of 42-0 with 26 knockouts.
The 33-year-old Pacquiao, boxing’s only eight-division titilist, wants to do battle with Mayweather in what could be the sweet science’s biggest fight ever, with the protagonists projected to earn at least $50 million each.
On Saturday, Pacquiao said he is willing to let Mayweather have the bigger slice of the pie just for the fight to push through.
This despite Pacquiao beating Mayweather on both pay-per-view and gate attendance in their last fights against Juan Manuel Marquez and Victor Ortiz, respectively.
Pacquiao-Marquez III drew a minimum of 1.4 million PPV buys while Mayweather-Ortiz hardly made 1.25M PPV buys and was unable to fill MGM Grand. In contrast, Pacquiao-Marquez was a sellout with an attendance of 16,389 and $11,648,300 in revenues.
