Jermain Taylor Pleads Guilty To Lesser Charges, Returns to Gym
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
| *Photo Credit John Moritz, Arkansas Online |
Little Rock, Arkansas (December 3, 2015)– Former World Middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, 37, of Arkansas, a veteran of eight world championship bouts at 160 and 168 pounds, pled guilty on December 1, 2015, to reduced charges on nine class ‘D’ felonies from three separate incidents. Taylor will continue training for a comeback in Florida under supervision, a bout likely to take place before testimony is given relevant to cases against him and he is sentenced in April 2016.
Taylor, 33-4-1 with 20 knockouts, won the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF World Middleweight title when he decisioned Bernard Hopkins over 12 rounds in July 2005 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Taylor regained the IBF version of the World Middleweight title by decisioning Sam Soliman over 12 rounds in October 2014 at Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. He lost to Carl Froch in an attempt to win the WBC World Super Middleweight title.
In the three separate incidents, Taylor shot a cousin outside his residence, shot at and threatened a family during a Martin Luther King parade, and beat up a patient at a rehabilitation center. Taylor’s plea deal to the nine felonies means he can be sentenced from zero to six years on each count, imposed either consecutively or concurrently.
He faces up to 54 years in prison when he’s sentenced April 19, a date set more than four months out so his victims, many of whom now live out of state, have time to make travel arrangements to testify.
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