Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was arrested on assault charges early
Saturday following a street brawl with two guests outside a Brooklyn hotel,
police said.
The boxer was treated for minor cuts to his hands after the other men
apparently swung at him with a metal pole taken from the lobby of the hotel
where Tyson also was staying, police said.
Tyson, 36, was charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, in the 5:30
a.m. fight. The two men, Samuel Velez, 31, of Reading, Pa., and Nestor Alvarez,
24, of Philadelphia, both were charged with misdemeanor counts of menacing and
harassment, according to the Brooklyn district attorney's office. Velez and
Alvarez pleaded not guilty at an early Sunday arraignment.
One of the men and their female companion were treated for minor injuries at
a hospital, police said. Tyson was not hospitalized.
A source close to the investigation said the two men started the fight with
Tyson, adding that the boxer feared the men would hit him with the pole.
"They did instigate it," the source told The Associated Press. "They were
harassing him, saying things to him. But Tyson was the one who threw the first
punch."
Shelly Finkel, adviser to the Brooklyn-born boxer, did not know any of the
details of the confrontation, saying, "I'm in the process of trying to find
out."
Tyson was released later Saturday and was due back in court at an unspecified
later date, the district attorney's office said.
Tyson walked silently past a small group fans who shouted "Mike! Mike!" as he
was led out the precinct in a driving rain.
In 1986, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history at age 20,
but legal troubles soon followed.
He was convicted of rape in 1992 and sentenced to six years in prison. He
served three years before being released on parole. In a Fox television
interview last month, Tyson said he was so angry about the conviction he wanted
to rape his accuser and her mother.
In 1997, after Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear during a
bout, his Nevada boxing license was suspended for a year and he was fined $3
million. In 1999, he was released from a Maryland jail after serving 3 months
for assaulting two motorists.
Last year, he threw a punch at Lennox Lewis' bodyguard at a news conference
announcing a fight between the two, setting off a brawl between the two boxers
in which Tyson bit Lewis' leg.
Tyson eventually lost to Lewis, but won his last fight in the ring, knocking
out Clifford Etienne in the first round in February.
