Mike Tyson, born Michael Gerard Tyson on June 30, 1966, is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1985 and 2024. He rose to fame in 1986 when he beat Trevor Berbick and became, at age 20, the youngest heavyweight champ in boxing history.
Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at the age of 20, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IBF) titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession.
Despite his boxing achievements, Tyson's life has been marked by controversy, including a rape conviction and subsequent imprisonment. This article delves into the details surrounding his release from prison, the events leading up to it, and the aftermath.
The Rape Conviction and Imprisonment
In July 1991, Tyson met Desiree Washington at a rehearsal for the Miss Black America pageant in Indianapolis. Washington accompanied Tyson back to his hotel room, where, in the early hours of July 19, Tyson raped her. Tyson claimed the sex was consensual.
The world-famous fighter was indicted by a grand jury in September of that year and convicted in February 1992. On February 10, 1992, Tyson was convicted of the rape charge. The charges were prosecuted by a team led by J. Gregory Garrison, a former Marion County deputy prosecutor who was employed as a special prosecutor for this case. Tyson’s defense was led by Vincent L. Fuller, an attorney from Washington, D.C., who had successfully defended John W. Hinckley Jr.
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The rape allegations were initially submitted to a Marion County grand jury for consideration on August 16, 1991. Over 100 news organizations from around the world submitted requests to send reporters to cover the trial. Because of the intense publicity concerning the trial, Gifford sequestered the jury in the. The trial ended after 13 days which included testimony by 16 of the pageant contestants, among them Tyson’s accuser, and by Tyson, who testified in his own defense.
In March, he began serving his term at the Indiana Youth Center near Plainfield, Indiana. He was sentenced to serve six years in prison to be followed by four years on probation.
After the trial, Tyson employed Alan M. Dershowitz, a noted Harvard law professor, to appeal his conviction. Dershowitz and his brother, Nathan, argued the appeal before the Indiana Court of Appeals on February 15, 1993. On September 22, 1993, the Indiana Supreme Court, in a 2-2 decision, decided not to review the decision of the Court of Appeals. Supreme Court refused to hear a subsequent appeal.
He was released, after serving three years, in March 1995.
Release from Prison and Subsequent Legal Issues
After being paroled from prison, Tyson easily won his comeback bouts against Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr. Tyson's first comeback fight was marketed as "He's back!" and grossed more than US$96 million worldwide, including a United States record $63 million for PPV television.
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Post-prison, Tyson briefly recaptured the heavyweight title in 1996. Tyson regained one belt by easily winning the WBC title against Frank Bruno in March 1996. It was the second fight between the two, and Tyson knocked out Bruno in the third round. Tyson added the WBA belt by defeating champion Seldon in the first round in September that year.
However, the notorious pugilist continued to court controversy. In 1997, during a bout against Evander Holyfield, Tyson bit off a piece of the heavyweight champ’s ear; as a result, his boxing license was temporarily revoked. Soon to become one of the most controversial events in modern sports, the fight was stopped at the end of the third round, with Tyson disqualified for biting Holyfield on both ears. As a fallout from the incident, US$3 million was immediately withheld from Tyson's $30-million purse by the Nevada state boxing commission (the most it could legally hold back at the time). Two days after the fight, Tyson issued a statement, apologizing to Holyfield for his actions and asked not to be banned for life over the incident.
Tyson also had run-ins with the law and spent several months in jail for assaulting motorists after a traffic accident.
Hoping for a slap on the wrist, Mike Tyson instead was hit with a devastating legal blow Friday in Maryland, one that knocked him back into jail and out of boxing for the foreseeable future. The former two-time heavyweight champion, 32, was sentenced to a year in jail by a Montgomery County District judge for assaulting two motorists in the wake of a traffic accident last summer. Judge Stephen Johnson gave Tyson two concurrent two-year sentences but suspended all but one year. He also fined Tyson $5,000 and sentenced him to two years’ probation after his release. Tyson could be released in six months for good behavior.
Tyson “repeatedly speaks and acts compulsively and violently,” Johnson said after a three-hour hearing. “The court views this as a tragic example of potentially lethal road rage.”
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Tyson showed no emotion during the hearing, but his shoulders slumped when the verdict was announced. Denied bail, he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs as his wife, Monica, cried.
And things could get worse for Tyson, who is on probation in Indiana. Patricia Gifford, the Indiana judge who sentenced Tyson after his 1991 rape conviction, must decide whether he violated his probation, which was to have expired next month. Gifford could decide to send him back to prison after he serves his jail time in Maryland. “The judge is waiting for her paperwork to come from Maryland,” David Deputy, a bailiff in Gifford’s court, told Associated Press.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission also could review its decision in October to grant Tyson a boxing license, but even if the commissioners were to do nothing, that license will expire at the end of this year.
“He had a chance here, a chance to straighten out his life,” said John Branca, Tyson’s lead attorney. “The penalty seems unfair if it is going to deprive him of a chance to straighten out.”
Tyson has been unable to stay on a straight path since he left prison. Still the most compelling figure in his sport, he returned to the ring, won his first four fights, then was beaten by Evander Holyfield in November 1996 in a major upset.
But nothing was more upsetting than the rematch in June 1997. In the third round, Tyson bit off a piece of one of Holyfield’s ears, then also bit the other ear. Tyson was disqualified, stripped of his license and fined $3 million. He spent a year expressing repentance, went through nine hours of hearings before the Nevada Athletic Commission and underwent five days of exhaustive testing by mental-health experts before finally getting his license back.
But before he even went before the Nevada board, Tyson had caused new problems for himself after a minor three-car accident in Gaithersburg, Md., on Aug. 31. A car driven by Tyson’s wife, Monica Turner, with Tyson beside her in the passenger seat, was rear-ended in the collision. Tyson, later admitting he was angry that the two other drivers, Abmielec Saucedo and Richard Hardick, failed to express concern for his wife, kicked one in the groin and punched the other in the face.
Saucedo and Hardick settled out of court with Tyson and subsequently recommended that he not be imprisoned. In December, he pleaded no contest to the criminal assault charge, neither protesting the charges nor admitting guilt.
Although Tyson could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison, Montgomery County State’s Atty. Robert Dean, as part of an agreement based on Tyson’s plea, said he would recommend that Tyson not be jailed. But it was not a formal agreement and it was not honored by Douglas Gansler, who succeeded Dean. In a memo to the judge, Gansler called Tyson “nothing less than a time bomb.”
Gansler mentioned Tyson’s rape conviction, seven incidents from Tyson’s juvenile days when he clashed with the law, and the Holyfield fight. “He went out and beat up people and now he’s going to pay for it,” Gansler said.
A source in Tyson’s legal camp said an appeal will be made Monday or Tuesday, arguing that the sentence was unfair, especially in light of the no-contest plea. Tyson could also ask for a jury trial, but that could take months and Tyson still has hopes of returning to the ring.
In his first fight after reacquiring his license, he scored a fifth-round knockout of Francois Botha last month. Tyson looked rusty and was behind on all the judges’ scorecards until he landed the knockout punch. With his purse, he was able to pay the government $13 million he owed in back taxes. The fight, however, drew a disappointing crowd at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena and attracted less than half of the pay-per-view audience Tyson drew in his better days.
Tyson's Release from Maryland Jail
Mike Tyson was released today from a Maryland jail after serving 3 1/2 months for assaulting two motorists. The former heavyweight champion was released after an Indiana judge ended his probation for a 1992 rape conviction.
Superior Court Judge Patricia Gifford of Marion County, Ind., approved Tyson's release Friday, but the decision was not announced until today, said Becky Wagner, the judge's assistant chief clerk. Tyson was granted parole in Maryland on Friday. Indiana authorities needed to approve the decision before Tyson could go home for the first time since he was sentenced Feb. 5. Tyson had pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault charges stemming from a minor traffic accident in suburban Gaithersburg, Md.
The 32-year-old boxer last fought Jan. 16 and was behind on all three cards before he knocked out Francois Botha in the fifth round at Las Vegas. Wagner said Gifford and Tyson's lawyers had agreed that the jail time already served by Tyson in Maryland for an assault conviction satisfied the penalty he incurred for violating Indiana probation for the rape conviction.
That agreement allowed Tyson to be released from probation after he served his 30-day jail sentence in Maryland, Wagner said.