LAS VEGAS -- Lightweight boxing champion Floyd Mayweather
Jr. has been convicted of two counts of misdemeanor battery
stemming from a fight with two women inside a Las Vegas nightclub.
Mayweather was given a suspended sentence of one-year in jail
and ordered to undergo counseling. Justice of the Peace Deborah
Lippis said Thursday that if Mayweather didn't complete "impulse
control" counseling and stay out of trouble for a year, he would
spend a year in prison.
She also ordered the boxer to either pay a $1,000 fine or serve
100 hours of community service.
Lippis appeared to be angered by Mayweather's failure to take
responsibility, saying if he didn't change his attitude she'd put
him in prison in a "New York minute."
"You may be a terrific and famous fighter, but that doesn't
make you a god," Lippis said.
During the trial, Mayweather testified he never saw the two
women, who accused him of punching them in an unprovoked attack.
Herneatha McGill and Kaara Blackburn said they were in the club
Ra at the Luxor hotel-casino in the early morning hours of Aug. 1
when Mayweather and several bodyguards walked in.
McGill, who is friends with the mother of three of Mayweather's
children, said she had a prior run-in with Mayweather and wanted to
leave the nightclub. She did not elaborate on the earlier incident.
The women said Mayweather approached them as they started to
walk away.
"We started to walk out real fast, but it was too late,"
Blackburn said. "I saw him hit her."
The women testified Mayweather punched McGill on the cheek, and
then punched Blackburn on the back of the head as she tried to help
her friend off the ground.
After the incident, security guards convinced the women not to
report the incident to police, saying they would "end up paying
for it in the streets," McGill said.
After a couple of weeks, the women changed their minds and filed
reports with Las Vegas police and hotel security.
Neither woman sought medical attention, and they both contacted
a civil lawyer.
One of Mayweather's lawyers, Richard Wright, suggested the women
were using the criminal charges to get money from his client. He
said he found it hard to believe that neither woman had bruises and
neither needed medical attention.
"I don't want to sue Mr. Mayweather," McGill said. "I just
want Mr. Mayweather to leave me alone."