Felony case dropped against boxing’s Taylor

Pulaski County prosecutors on Monday dropped domestic violence charges against Arkansas Sports Hall of Famer Jermain Taylor after his accuser cut off contact with authorities and their efforts to find her were fruitless.

Taylor, who turned 40 on Saturday, was scheduled to stand trial on a felony terroristic threatening charge and misdemeanor counts of domestic battering and interference with emergency communication.

His first trial in May was delayed at the request of prosecutors because they had not been able to contact the woman, Ashley Rena Elizabeth White.

On Monday, deputy prosecutor Erin Driver told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson that investigators have gone to her home, called her on the phone and even tried to reach her through her family, but have never been able to get hold of her. White also has never returned their messages or contacted authorities.

It’s been almost exactly a year since White last appeared in court, and on that occasion, she accompanied Taylor to the hearing. He was alone on Monday.

At last year’s hearing, White could not bring herself to repeat the accusations she’d made against the Olympian and former boxing champion. Questioned by prosecutors, White affirmed under oath that

what she had told Maumelle police who arrested Taylor in July 2017 was true. Prosecutors wanted a court order to keep Taylor away from White, but she testified she did not want such an order.

The former boxing champion Taylor had been arrested after a late-night disturbance at his home. Police reported that he had bitten White on the arm and face during an argument over his “jealousy issues.” Police photographed a bite mark to White’s left arm, cuts on her lip, a scrape near her right eye and a cut below her right shoulder.

She told police she had pepper-sprayed Taylor when he took her cellphone away and broke it when she tried to call for help. She also told police he’d chased her out of the house and down the street.

Officers found no marks on Taylor, but reported that he looked like he had been pepper-sprayed and smelled like he had been drinking. He told police the couple had been “arguing all night.”

Taylor has been under a suspended sentence since May 2016 when he pleaded guilty to nine felony counts of second-degree battery, aggravated assault and terroristic threatening for a series of crimes over a nine-month span between August 2014 and May 2015 that included shooting his cousin in the leg, punching a fellow patient while in drug rehab and threatening a family with three children by shooting a pistol in the air at Little Rock’s Martin Luther King Jr. parade.

Taylor won the bronze medal in boxing at the 2000 Olympics in Australia, turned pro the next year and rose to be the undisputed middleweight champion in 2005 for two years.

A severe concussion with brain bleeding inflicted during a 2011 fight in Germany kept him out of the ring for two years.

He was just beginning what fans hoped would be a comeback when he was arrested in August 2014 after shooting his cousin in the leg.