LAS VEGAS, (Reuters) – Welterweight boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. pleaded no contest today in Las Vegas to misdemeanor battery against a security guard, prosecutors said.
Mayweather, a flamboyant 34-year-old boxer widely regarded as the best defensive fighter of his generation, will pay a $1,000 fine for the offense, according to the district attorney’s office.
The five-division World Boxing Council world champion boxer known as “Money” improved his professional record to a perfect 42-0, including 26 knockouts, with a fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz in Las Vegas in September to claim the World Boxing Council welterweight title.
Mayweather’s no contest plea to the misdemeanor battery charge was entered by his attorney as part of a larger plea deal that last week saw the boxer admit to wrongdoing in a separate attack on his ex-girlfriend, said Tess Driver, a spokeswoman for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.
In that case, Mayweather pleaded guilty to one charge of felony battery and no contest to two counts of harassment stemming from a 2010 physical attack on Josie Harris and verbal threats against two of his children with Harris.
Mayweather was sentenced to six months behind bars for that outburst, but half of that jail term was suspended. He has been ordered to appear in court on Jan. 6 to be transferred to jail, officials said.
A no contest plea is treated as the equivalent of guilty in Nevada criminal courts.
The plea came two months after Mayweather was acquitted of charges he threatened to send armed acquaintances to harm two security guards at a gated community in suburban Las Vegas where he lives.
