Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992 TAG: 9202110266
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS LENGTH: Medium
TYSON CONVICTED OF RAPE EX-BOXING CHAMPION FREE ON BOND; FACES 60-YEAR TERM
Boxer Mike Tyson was found guilty Monday of raping a Miss Black America contestant who said he lured her to his hotel room and overpowered her.Jurors deliberated about nine hours before reaching their verdict in the case, which threatens to end the rags-to-riches career of one of the most prominent athletes of his generation. Tyson was the youngest heavyweight champion ever, and had been planning a comeback in a title fight against champion Evander Holyfield this spring.
Tyson, 25, stared straight ahead impassively as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of all the charges he faced - one count of rape and two counts of criminal deviate conduct.
The judge said Tyson could remain free on $30,000 bond and set sentencing for March 6. He faces up to 60 years in prison.
Tyson and his entourage, including his promoter Don King, left the courthouse without making any comment.
Tyson, whose stormy relations with women have been the stuff of tabloid headlines for years, offered an unusual defense - that he was a crude womanizer whose accuser must have known he wanted sex.
He maintained that he was blunt about his desires from the outset, and that they had sex with her consent.
"I didn't violate her in any way," he testified. "She never told me to stop, or I was hurting her, nothing."
His accuser, at 18 the youngest Tyson pageant contestant, testified he had overpowered her in his hotel room, pinned her on a bed with his forearm, stripped her, raped her and laughed while she cried in pain and begged him to stop.
"I said, `Please, you're hurting me! Please, stop!' And he started laughing, like it was a game," she said.
The trial spanned nine days of testimony and featured nearly 50 witnesses. The incident took place last July 19 before the Miss Black America pageant.
Besides the accuser, crucial prosecution witnesses included an emergency room doctor who said the woman suffered injuries consistent with rape, and a chauffeur who said the woman appeared scared and shaken when she emerged from Tyson's hotel.
Eleven pageant contestants testified for the defense, which sought to portray Tyson as lewd and obsessed with sex.
Some said they heard the accuser make comments about his body, intellect and net worth, bolstering a defense argument that she was a gold digger who concocted a story of rape out of anger over being treated as a one-night stand.
Others told a version of events closer to that of the accuser, who said she never heard the lewd remarks and never made any suggestive remarks herself.
The woman said she met Tyson at a pageant rehearsal. Later, he called from his limousine and asked her to go sightseeing, she said.
Tyson said the two kissed in the car, but his accuser said she rebuffed his advances. She said they stopped at Tyson's hotel, presumably so he could make a phone call or pick up his bodyguard. She said they were watching television and talking casually when Tyson told her, "You're turning me on."
The woman said she went to the bathroom, and when she emerged Tyson was sitting on the bed in his underwear.
"I was terrified," she said. "I said, `It's time for me to leave.' He said, `Come here,' and grabbed my arm. I said, `Stop! Get off me!' I tried to fight. It was like hitting a wall."
Tyson testified that she never protested. He described a quick, intense sexual encounter.