Tyson tells of how being sent to jail saved his life
LONDON: Mike Tyson wasn’t listening to Judge Patricia Gifford’s lecture on “date rape”. It was March 26, 1992. Six weeks earlier, he had been convicted of raping beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington, 18. At 25, he was facing 60 years in jail.
In his explosive autobiography, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, published yesterday, Tyson reveals he spent the weeks leading up to that sentencing travelling round the country “romancing” his various girlfriends. And where legal measures had let him down, he turned to “divine intervention” to bring him a light sentence.
He visited a “hoodoo woman” who said she would cast a spell to keep him out of jail if he put $500 bills in a jar, urinated in it and kept it under his bed for three days.
He almost believed it would work because he felt invincible. “In my mind,” he says, “I had no peers. I was the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. I was a titan, the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.”
He was sentenced to six years and served three.
Today, Tyson believes the day he was sent to jail may well have been the day that saved his life.
That life as told by Tyson is one of drama, turbulence, excess and addiction.
Born in Cumberland Hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Tyson never met the man on his birth certificate, Percel Tyson. And the man his mother, Lorna Mae, told him was his “biological father”, Jimmy “Curlee” Kirkpatrick jr, was an infrequent presence in both their lives.
By the time Tyson was seven, his mother had lost her job and she and her children had been evicted. He claims she started drinking heavily, never found another job and often slept with men to keep a roof over her family’s head.
Tyson’s early boyhood took on a rhythm of crime sprees, being hauled in by police to be taken home and beaten by his despairing mother.
By the time he was 12, he was a “zonked out zombie” on drugs and a regular at reform school. At one, in Sporford, they watched a movie called The Greatest about Muhammad Ali. “When it was over… Ali walked out on that stage,” Tyson says. “I thought, I want to be that guy.”
Later he was send to Tryon, a hard-line school where in 1980 he was introduced to trainer Cus D’Amato, who was to become his mentor, trainer and putative father.
By the time he was 14, Tyson was “thinking like a Roman Gladiator”. He lived and breathed boxing, going through amateur bouts to the Junior Olympics, where he knocked out his opponent in just eight seconds to win the gold in 1981. The day he was to fight for the heavyweight champion of the world title, D’Amato died of pneumonia. Tyson won it at 20.
When he got out of prison for rape, he was 29. Infamous promoter Don King had a series of comeback fights lined up for $200 million.
In 1997, he was suspended after the notorious Evander Holyfield fight in which he bit off a chunk of his ear.
After another stint in prison for assault, two marriages and rehab, he is trying to be a good father and husband. – Daily Mail WAITO star Sipho “Brickz” Ndlovu, who is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl, is yet to find out if he will be granted bail.
He appeared yesterday in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court, where his bail application was read out.
According to a police affidavit read out in court, Ndlovu’s partner, Nqobile, had reported the incident after the 16-year-old told her Ndlovu
Khad allegedly raped her. He had allegedly threatened to kill her if she told anyone. It is alleged the incident took place in March.
Nqobile reported the case in October and Ndlovu was arrested on November 1.
The packed courtroom became restless yesterday when the case was delayed and started only at 2pm.
Ndlovu told the court he had not been found guilty of anything before, but when the police affidavit was read out, it was found he had a drug possession conviction in 2007.
He later told his lawyer that he was fined for the charge, but did not realise it was a conviction.
After the affidavits were read out, magistrate Piet Kotze questioned the investigating officer, Joel Ngubeni.
Ngubeni said the actual investigating officer for the case was ill.
The policeman had been assigned to the case only yesterday morning and had spoken to the victim and telephonically to Nqobile for the first time that morning.
The affidavit was after noon yesterday.
The magistrate told the officer certain statements in the affidavit were not clear.
“It’s easy to put something in writing, but not easy to explain,” he said.
Ngubeni said he had been told that the victim could not report the rape as she was scared and would sometimes hide from the accused until Nqobile would return home.
He added that the girl had said she witnessed Ndlovu assault his partner and that he often carried out his threats.
Ndlovu said he was single and had two young children.
When Le Roux asked Ngubeni why Nqobile was referred to as the wife, he said he knew only that they had a child together and were living together.
Ndlovu intended to not guilty.
He arrived in court yesterday in a confident and jolly mood, smiling and greeting friends and fans.
He wore a suit, a Zulu protection band on his right wrist and a white, beaded rosary on his left.
The case was postponed to today for further evidence.