Boxing: Tyson jailed for assault

MIKE TYSON faces the end of his boxing career after being sentenced to jail yet again, this time for a road rage incident.

The former heavyweight champion was sentenced to two years in jail yesterday, with one year suspended, for punching a motorist and kicking another after a road accident in a Washington suburb last August. The sentence could put him in breach of parole terms for a previous conviction, and could mean he loses his boxing licence for the second time in two years.

The boxer stood silent as the sentence was read, and a groan swept over the courtroom from his friends and supporters. His wife, Monica, wept and bowed her head as Tyson was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Tyson, 32, had put up no defence against the charges of second-degree assault, but his lawyers had argued against a prison sentence. He could become a "useful and contributing member of the community", and would receive more psychiatric help, they said. "Everything in his life and career were in chaos" and he was not taking his prescribed anti-depressants.

The two victims, Abmielec Saucedo and Richard Hardick, had settled out of court, and both were ready to say that Tyson should not go back to prison. Although Mr Saucedo was punched by Tyson, he received only a cut lip, the lawyers said, arguing that "If Mr Tyson had intentionally struck Mr Saucedo, one need only look at the crumpling of Francois Botha as a result of the single punch from Mr Tyson to envision the result."

But it was not enough to stop Judge Stephen Johnson from imposing a custodial sentence. Tyson "repeatedly speaks and acts compulsively and violently," he said.

The prosecutor had said that Tyson was a "time bomb," pointing to his numerous juvenile legal problems, the conviction for rape, and of course the June 1997 fight that cost Evander Holyfield a piece of his ear and Tyson his licence. It is only four months since he got it back again from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The terms of his probation for rape, following a 1992 conviction in Indiana, mean he could serve up to another three years in prison there. He served three years of a six-year sentence, and his parole was due to end in March.

The boxer had "continually bizarre and frightening outbursts", the prosecutors argued in a sentencing memo that contained 126 pages of magazine and newspaper stories as background material, including the statement to Playboy magazine that he was "going to blow one day". The prosecution argued that Tyson had bribed his victims. "He's paid off the complaining witnesses," said Douglas Gansler, the State Attorney. "You don't get attacked and beaten to the ground by a random person and then come in and testify on their behalf without a large incentive to do so, such as a large sum of money."

The case had become complicated by local Maryland politics, with the county prosecutor keen to see Tyson jailed, but a plea agreement negotiated by his predecessor apparently guaranteeing there would not be a prison sentence. Tyson was also put on two years' probation when he is released, ordered to pay costs and to perform 200 hours of community service.

It is just days since Tyson stepped into the ring for the first time in nearly two years to despatch Botha in five rounds in Las Vegas. While he looked slow at times and the fight was marked by an ugly mood, he showed in his post-fight comments that he remains defiant. "I'm a man. I lived it and I'm not afraid to die but when I die I'm going to paradise and I'm not worried," he said.