Boxing: Tyson faces return to gaol

MIKE TYSON will today face the prospect of being sent back to prison when he comes up against prosecutors in a Maryland courtroom.

Already on parole for a 1992 rape conviction in Indiana, the former world heavyweight champion will be sentenced by Montgomery County District Judge Stephen Johnson on two counts of misdemeanor assault, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines of $2,600 (pounds 1,500).

The charges stem from a minor traffic accident last August in Gaithersburg, Maryland, when Tyson's wife, Monica, was shunted in a three car chain- reaction. Tyson allegedly jumped from the car, punched a 62-year-old driver in the jaw and kicked another, 50-year-old man in the groin.

Tyson pleaded no contest to the charges in December and has reached out- of-court financial settlements with both of his alleged victims.

"We are asking for probation with continued counselling, and community service, of which he has already done 54 hours," Tyson's lawyer, Paul Kemp, said yesterday.

Kemp added that the boxer has been visiting juvenile offenders and terminally ill children near his Arizona training facility in hopes of gaining the judge's leniency.

In court documents filed last week, however, prosecutors asked the judge for "executed incarceration," labelling the volatile 32-year-old a "bully" and a "ticking time bomb" who could lose control of his temper at any time.

Under Maryland law, incarceration can be a sentence as light as probation, Tyson's lawyers say. But Montgomery County's state attorney, Douglas Gansler, has made it clear he wants a gaol term. "That would not be an inappropriate sentence," Gansler said.

Anxious to forestall a prison sentence, Tyson supporters hope to have Muhammad Ali on hand for moral support. At least one of the fighter's alleged victims, 62-year-old Abimelec Saucedo, will be there to tell the judge that gaol time is unnecessary.