Objection
Lawyers bemoan Mayweather Jr.’s jail conditions,
LAS VEGAS — A judge said she would decide this week whether to ease jail conditions for Floyd Mayweather Jr. after his attorneys argued the undefeated champ was getting out of shape in solitary confinement and might never fight again.
Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa made no ruling Tuesday on an emergency motion asking the court to move Mayweather into the general jail population — something that jail officials had avoided out of fear for the celebrity’s safety — or put him in house arrest for the rest of his sentence.
Mayweather attorney Richard Wright said he would be willing to have the boxer serve the sentence in an apartment or a site less luxurious than Mayweather’s posh Vegas-area home.
“I’m not looking for special treatment for Floyd Mayweather,” Wright said. “I’m looking for fair treatment.”
But prosecutor Lisa Luzaich said softening the sentence would be another accommodation, similar to when Mayweather’s jail surrender date was postponed for months after sentencing so he could fight Miguel Cotto in May.
“They keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away,” Luzaich said.
Mayweather pleaded guilty in December to misdemeanor domestic battery and no contest to two harassment charges that stemmed from an attack on his ex-girlfriend while two of their children watched. He was sentenced to three months and entered jail June 1.
Mayweather’s jail stay will be capped at 87 days because the judge gave him credit for three days previously served. It could be reduced by several weeks for good behavior.
In the motion, first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, lawyers said Mayweather’s personal physician, Robert Voy, visited the jail Friday and was concerned that the 35-year-old fighter appeared to have lost muscle tone.
Voy estimated the boxer was consuming fewer than 800 calories a day — a drop from his usual 3,000 or 4,000 calories — and wasn’t drinking enough because he isn’t allowed bottled water and doesn’t usually drink tap water.
Mayweather has been getting about 30 minutes twice a day in a couple of barren recreation areas in the administrative segregation unit. His cell, no larger than 7-by-12 feet, has barely enough space for push-ups and sit-ups.
But prosecutors argued he’s “deconditioning” by choice and declining much of his food. “He has the ability to exercise, he just chooses not to,” Luzaich said. “It’s jail. Where did he think he was going? The Four Seasons?”
Voy and Wright also pointed to Mayweather’s declining emotional state.
“I am concerned about Floyd withdrawing, developing anger he cannot dissipate through the usual means of dedicated exercise and training,” Voy wrote in an affidavit.