MESA, Ariz. (AP) _ Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson pleaded
guilty Monday to charges of drug possession and driving under the
influence stemming from a traffic stop last year as he was leaving a
nightclub.
Tyson quietly acknowledged to a judge that he had cocaine and was
impaired when he was stopped for driving erratically in Scottsdale
on Dec. 29.
He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of cocaine possession
and a misdemeanour DUI count and faces up to four years and three
months in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 19. A felony charge of
possession of drug paraphernalia and a second misdemeanour DUI
charge were dropped, according to the terms of a plea agreement.
Defence lawyer David Chesnoff said Tyson has been clean and sober
for eight months.
``It's obvious this was a crime he was committing against
himself,'' Chesnoff said.
Police stopped Tyson after the boxer had spent the evening at
Scottsdale's Pussycat Lounge. An officer said he saw Tyson wiping a
white substance off the dashboard of his black BMW, and that his
speech was slurred. Authorities said they found bags of cocaine in
Tyson's pocket and in his car.
Tyson told officers later that he used cocaine ``whenever I can
get my hands on it,'' and that he preferred to smoke it in Marlboro
cigarettes with the tobacco pulled out, according to court
documents. He also told police that he used marijuana that day and
was taking the antidepressant Zoloft, the documents state.
Since his arrest, Tyson checked himself into an in-patient
treatment program for what his lawyer called ``various addictions.''
Defence lawyer David Chesnoff had said previously that he had try to
keep the boxer out of prison.
In 1986, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in
history when, at 20, he knocked out Trevor Berbick. He lost his
title four years later when he was knocked out by James ``Buster''
Douglas. By 1997, Tyson's career hit a low point when he bit Evander
Holyfield's ear during a fight.
Tyson, 41, recently had been trying to revive his career with a
series of boxing exhibitions.
County Attorney Andrew Thomas said earlier this year that Tyson
should be put behind bars if convicted, noting that Tyson was
convicted of rape in Indiana in 1992 and pleaded no contest to
misdemeanour assault charges in Maryland in 1999. ``He has run out
of second chances,'' Thomas said.
