Columnist Dean Juipe: Don’t look for Tyson to be jailed

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 2, 1999 | 10:19 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

e may not have the finest legal talent money can buy, but Mike Tyson seemingly has an attorney in every city. And his Rockville, Md., representative thought it was in the fighter's best interest back on Dec. 1 to enter a no-contest plea to a pair of lingering assault charges.

Tyson not only complied, he paid off the two men he had assailed after an Aug. 31 traffic accident in the Washington D.C. suburb.

Despite the fact the men withdrew their assault charges upon receiving their payola, Tyson faces a sentencing hearing Friday in Montgomery (Md.) County. Last weekend, a couple of young pups in the prosecutor's office there presented their hearing recommendation and it advocated sending Tyson back up the river.

Still on probation (through March) for his sexual assault in Indianapolis in 1992, Tyson is looking at the possibility of 10-year sentences on each of the assault charges.

But here's an educated guess: He walks.

Oh, they'll clutter up his schedule with a few dozen hours of community service requirements, but there's no way Tyson's legal advisers led him down a path to prison.

That's why the news last Friday that the Rockville prosecutor's underlings were all but salivating in anticipation of nailing the former heavyweight champ needs an asterisk glued to it. Yes, they're calling for jail time, but, no, they're not going to get it.

It doesn't take a suspicious mind to believe whatever sentence Tyson will receive for kicking the one man and punching the other in Rockville was established -- unofficially, of course -- at the time he entered his no-contest plea. If there was a contingency, it had to do with Tyson staying "clean" until the hearing -- and he has.

The fact that none of this sits well with the Nevada State Athletic Commission is all but irrelevant. Hey, Tyson apparently lied when he told the NSAC that he hadn't struck the motorists in Maryland, yet that governing body granted him a license for 1999 (on Oct. 19) and it will take more than a little deceit on Tyson's part for that license to be revoked.

For that matter, Tyson (and his accomplices) may have been stretching the truth when they assured the NSAC that the quick-tempered pugilist would continue underdoing therapy for his emotional problems. In actuality, while the commission requested Tyson continue receiving therapy and advised him accordingly, he's under no legal obligation to comply (and may have already quit).

At the time, the NSAC didn't have the power or the authority to attach conditions to a license. As a result, short of Tyson actually being sent back to prison he will continue to make his living as a professional fighter.

He's scheduled for the second bout in what is the second comeback of his career on April 24 at the MGM. The latest "likely opponent" is Shannon Briggs, although it seems as if a formal announcement will be delayed until after the judge in Montgomery County has had his say.

Keep this in mind as Friday approaches: Tyson's many lawyers were consulted before he entered that no-contest plea, and they would have fought the assault charges if they believed the no-contest stakes included the possibility of their man returning to prison.

In some back room, a deal was bartered and Tyson is not going back to jail.