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Mayweather Trades Mansion for Vegas Jail Cell

Posted: 7:15 AM Jun 1, 2012
Reporter: Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Floyd Mayweather Jr. surrendered in a courtroom
Friday to begin a three-month jail sentence for attacking his
ex-girlfriend in September 2010 while two of their children
watched.

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa credited the
undefeated five-division champion with attending weekly domestic
violence counseling sessions - including one the day of the May 5
fight she allowed him to make - and with beginning to meet
community service requirements she imposed in December. The judge then watched as Mayweather was handcuffed and taken away.

Mayweather didn't say a word.

"He'll be all right," Mayweather's friend, rapper 50 Cent,
told reporters after arriving with Mayweather and speaking
afterward with ring adviser Leonard Ellerbe outside the courthouse
in downtown Las Vegas.

"It's an uncomfortable situation for everyone," he said.

Ellerbe declined to comment.

Mayweather pleaded guilty in December to reduced domestic
battery charges in a hair-pulling, arm-twisting attack on Josie
Harris, the mother of three of his children. The plea deal allowed
him to avoid trial on felony charges that could have gotten
Mayweather up to 34 years in prison if he was convicted.

"Everyone has a different version of the same story," said 50
Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III. He compared the
dispute between Mayweather and Harris to the breakup of a marriage
with children involved. Harris and their three children now live in
southern California.

"It's no different than anyone going through a divorce," the
rap star said, "and how your friends can become your vested
enemies."

Las Vegas police say that as a high-profile inmate, Mayweather
probably will serve most of his time away from other prisoners in a
small solo cell in the high-rise Clark County Detention Center.

Police released a statement Thursday saying visitation at the
jail will be suspended Saturday for "inmate reclassification and
housing changes." Officer Bill Cassell, a department spokesman,
said the expected 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. lockout was not related to
Mayweather's arrival.

Mayweather, who goes by the nickname "Money," apparently
enjoyed some pampering Thursday while preparing for his jail stint.
He posted an image Thursday on Facebook and Instagram showing him getting a pedicure. The caption read, "At home enjoying my day."

In jail, he'll have a cell about one-third the size of a small
boxing ring. For at least the first week, Mayweather will be
segregated for his protection from the other 3,200 inmates in the
downtown Las Vegas facility, Cassell said.

Mayweather won't have a TV in his cell, and Cassell said
televisions in jail dining areas probably won't carry the June 9
pay-per-view WBO welterweight fight between Mayweather rival Manny
Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley at the MGM Grand Garden arena.

The judge sentenced Mayweather on Dec. 22, then later allowed
him to remain free long enough to make the Cinco de Mayo weekend
fight and a guaranteed $32 million. Opponent Miguel Cotto was paid
$8 million.

Saragosa said when she sentenced Mayweather that she was
particularly troubled that he threatened and hit Harris while their
two sons watched. The boys were 10 and 8 at the time. The older boy
ran out a back door to get a security guard in the gated community.

Mayweather pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery and no
contest to two harassment charges.

Prosecutors dropped felony robbery, coercion, and grand larceny
charges stemming from allegations that he threatened the boys and
took cellphones from Harris and his son. Combined, the charges
could have gotten him up to 34 years in prison.

The misdemeanor conviction was one of several since 2002 for
Mayweather in battery and violence cases in Las Vegas and in his
hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich.

As part of his plea deal in the domestic battery case, he
pleaded no contest and paid a $1,000 fine for a November 2010
scuffle with a homeowner association security guard in an argument
about parking tickets.

He was acquitted last October of misdemeanor allegations that he
threatened two homeowner association security guards during a
separate parking ticket argument.

He was acquitted by a Nevada jury in July 2005 after being
accused of hitting and kicking Harris during an argument outside a
Las Vegas nightclub, and he received a suspended one-year jail
sentence and was ordered to undergo impulse-control counseling
after his conviction in 2002 of misdemeanor battery in another
nightclub fight with two women.

He was fined in Grand Rapids in February 2005 and ordered to
perform community service after pleading no contest to misdemeanor
assault and battery for a bar fight.

Mayweather also faces a civil lawsuit in Las Vegas from two men
who allege he orchestrated a shooting attack on them outside a
skating rink in 2009. Police have never accused Mayweather of
firing shots and he has never been criminally charged in the case.

Mayweather's jail stay will be capped at 87 days, because the
judge gave him credit for three days previously served. It could be
reduced by several weeks for good behavior, Cassell said.

Mayweather also was ordered to complete the yearlong domestic
violence counseling program, 100 hours of community service and pay a $2,500 fine.

His lawyer, Karen Winckler, said Mayweather has paid the fine.

Mayweather's standard administrative segregation cell will have
a bunk, stainless steel toilet and sink, a steel and wood desk with
a permanently bolted stool and two small vertical windows with
opaque safety glass.

The 7-by-12-foot cell will be a far cry from Mayweather's nearly
12,800-square-foot, two-story mansion on a cul de sac in an
exclusive guarded community several miles south of the Las Vegas
Strip. Mayweather's home has two garages, five bedrooms, eight
bathrooms, and a swimming pool and hot tub overlooking a golf
course.

Mayweather could have about an hour a day out of his cell with
access to an exercise yard, Cassell said. Depending on his
behavior, the boxer could later get several hours a day for
exercise with other inmates also being held in protective custody.

He'll wear a standard-issue blue jail jumpsuit with the letters
CCDC and orange slippers. Mayweather will be able to deposit money
into a jail account to purchase snacks, soap and personal hygiene
items from the jail commissary.