Boxer Mayweather completes plea deal in Vegas

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, waits for sentencing as his manager Leonard Ellerbe, second from left, talks with his attorneys in Clark County District Court, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011, in Las Vegas. Mayweather was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to reduced battery domestic violence and harassment charges. The 34-year-old was also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service and pay a $2,500 fine. The plea deal avoids trial on felony allegations that he hit his ex-girlfriend and threatened two of their children during an argument at her home in September 2010. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

LAS VEGAS — Attorneys for boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. completed the second part of a plea deal Friday that let the championship fighter pay a $1,000 fine and avoid trial and jail time for a November 2010 scuffle with a homeowner association security guard in an argument about parking tickets.

Mayweather, 34, didn’t appear in person before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Janiece Marshall while his lawyer, Karen Winckler, pleaded no contest on his behalf to misdemeanor battery and said the fine had been paid.

The plea acknowledged allegations that Mayweather poked the 21-year-old guard in the face several times with his finger during their argument in front of Mayweather’s million-dollar-plus home in an exclusive gated community several miles south of the Las Vegas Strip.

Mayweather is scheduled to start a 90-day jail sentence Jan. 6 in an unrelated case, which raises doubts about a long-anticipated fight between Mayweather and Philippine fight rival Manny Pacquiao.

He pleaded guilty Dec. 21 to misdemeanor battery domestic violence and no contest to harassment for a hair-pulling, punching and arm-twisting argument with his ex-girlfriend, Josie Harris, while two of their children, ages 9 and 10, watched in September 2010 at the woman’s home.

Mayweather spent two nights at the Clark County jail in downtown Las Vegas after an arrest in the domestic violence case and one night in jail after the poking incident.

Mayweather’s lawyers have said they may ask the judge who sentenced Mayweather in the domestic violence case to reconsider the 90-day jail term, but Winckler declined comment after Friday’s hearing for the other case.

Judge Melissa Saragosa sentenced Mayweather to six months in the Clark County jail but suspended half the term. She gave him credit for three days previously served and ordered him to complete 100 hours of community service, pay a $2,500 fine and complete a yearlong domestic violence counseling program.

The plea allowed Mayweather to avoid a trial on felony and misdemeanor charges that could have gotten him 34 years in state prison if he had been convicted on all counts.

Police said good behavior could reduce Mayweather’s jail term sentence by several weeks. But his time behind bars will likely cut into training time for a May 5 date that Mayweather’s promoters have reserved for a bout against an as-yet unnamed opponent at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Mayweather and Pacquiao have a defamation lawsuit pending in federal court in Las Vegas stemming from statements by Mayweather that he suspects Pacquiao took performance-enhancing drugs.

Mayweather is also on the hook to complete 40 hours of community service by Jan. 31 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.

And he 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.

Read more...