Trial dates set for heavyweight boxer

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 9 a.m.

A Dec. 6 trial date in District Court Department 7 has been set for heavyweight boxer Ikemufula "Ike" Ibeabuchi on charges that he attacked a corrections officer at the Clark County Detention Center.

Dec. 6, however, is also the date he is scheduled to stand trial in District Court Department 6 on charges he sexually assaulted an outcall entertainer in his Strip hotel room.

Ibeabuchi's attorney Richard Wright said it wasn't until he returned to his office after Tuesday's arraignment of the burley boxer on the jail beating charge that he realized both cases were set for trial on the same date.

Deputy District Attorney Mary Kay Holthus did not appear in District Judge Mark Gibbons' courtroom Tuesday for the routine hearing and was surprised when the same date was assigned.

The issue, however, was resolved later in the day when the lawyers agreed to postpone the sexual assault case in District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom. A new trial date will be set Oct. 19.

Ibeabuchi is being held in jail in lieu of $3 million bail on the four sexual assault charges because of his potential danger to the community. Wright is seeking to have that bail figure lowered and win Ibeabuchi the freedom that would allow him to continue his boxing career.

The jail charges of battery by a prisoner and assault on an officer allege Ibeabuchi pushed a corrections officer during a confrontation shortly before a scheduled court appearance on the sex charges.

Holthus has alleged that the boxer pushed one corrections officer at the Clark County Detention Center into a wall and tried to bite another.

"He had to be basically beaten down," Holthus said.

In the sexual assault case, Ibeabuchi is alleged to have lured the 21-year-old, 6-foot-tall victim to his Mirage hotel room in the early morning hours of July 22 but wouldn't pay the $150 minimum fee for an erotic dance.