Tyson Gets One Year for Assault on Motorists

Heavyweight fighter Mike Tyson was ordered Friday to serve one year in the Montgomery County, Md., jail for assaulting two motorists in a fender-bender in Gaithersburg, a sentence that Tyson’s lawyers said could end his boxing career and lead to more prison time on his 1992 Indiana rape conviction.

Tyson stood silently, appearing stunned, as the standing-room-only courtroom filled with shocked gasps and his wife, Monica, dropped her head into her hands and wept before the former heavyweight boxing champion was led away in handcuffs. His family said he would appeal.

Montgomery District Court Judge Stephen P. Johnson said that Tyson had “lashed out at two innocent people” using “the hands and feet of a professional fighter” when he punched one man in the face and kicked another in the groin after a minor chain-reaction collision Aug. 31. The only reason neither of the two men was seriously hurt, the judge said, was that Tyson’s bodyguard restrained him.

Calling it “a tragic example of potentially lethal road rage,” the judge ordered that Tyson be held at the county jail without bond. Johnson also fined Tyson $2,500 and suspended another year of jail time that Tyson, 32, will have to serve if he violates any terms of a two-year probation.

“He repeatedly acts and speaks impulsively and violently,” the judge said of Tyson. “He’s almost predictable in this way.”

Outside the courtroom later, Montgomery State’s Attorney Douglas Gansler said the state might not have sought incarceration if Tyson had been contrite. “He’s never admitted his guilt,” Gansler said.

Tyson entered a no-contest plea to the two misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault Dec. 1. The plea, which cannot be used in a civil suit, means that he did not admit or deny guilt; he simply did not contest the charges. But under the law he was sentenced as if he had pleaded guilty.

Tyson may appeal the sentence as early as Monday to Montgomery County Circuit Court, where he could enter another plea agreement and try for a lighter sentence with another judge. He also could opt for a trial, either by a jury or a judge. Under Maryland law, anyone sentenced in District Court may automatically appeal the case to a Circuit Court judge and try the case with a fresh start.

Monica Tyson’s brother, Michael Steele, said Tyson will appeal. Tyson’s attorneys, Paul F. Kemp and Robert A. Greenberg, left by a back courthouse door after the four-hour hearing and did not return calls Friday night.

Tyson’s attorneys, who had asked that the boxer be sentenced to probation with volunteer work and psychiatric counseling, told the judge at least six times that any jail time would almost certainly lead to a ruling that Tyson had violated probation imposed after a 1992 rape conviction in Indiana.

Judge Patricia Gifford, who presided over Tyson’s rape trial, could order him to serve up to four years remaining on that sentence. Gifford did not comment Friday, but a bailiff in her court said “the judge is waiting for her paperwork to come from Maryland.”

Tyson’s lawyers also pleaded for leniency because the Nevada Athletic Commission had warned that another jail sentence could lead the commission to yank Tyson’s boxing license permanently, a move that his lawyers said other states would follow.

But Nevada Deputy Attorney General Keith E. Kizer said Friday that revocation was not automatic and that the Nevada Athletic Commission would determine the appropriate action.