Brokedown palace

Tyson's massive debt fueled by legal clashes with women

Yo, Iron Mike, here’s the deal: You need turn a cautious eye on the ladies. So don’t be playing out of class with doctors, actresses and such. Be cool and stay away from beauty pageants and nightclubs. And shy away from grabbing buttocks in public, unless you want to be reaching for your checkbook.

This advice comes because Mike Tyson is broke. Even after a $17.5 million payday against Lennox Lewis last June, the once-feared champ told the court in his recent divorce proceeding that he’s $18 million in debt. So the man who has made in the neighborhood of $200 million is left to pay Wife No. 2, pediatrician Monica Turner, a percentage of his future earnings.

Tyson acknowledges, even brags of having squandered his ring earnings on luxury cars, fine jewelry, mansions and exotica, such as his pet pigeons, lions and tigers. But there’s something else in this equation: women. The man has been taken to the cleaners by them, with probably nothing to blame but his own destructive, undisciplined ways.

What's it cost him since the late 1980s, you ask?

How about $30 million? That’s a conservative figure we reached, after looking into the divorces, paternity suits and the civil suits brought by women accusing him of fondling them, sexually attacking them or making improper advances -- with a number of settlements remaining confidential.

Turner, mother to two of his children, got a nice chunk last week when Tyson agreed to pay her $6.5 million in finalizing their divorce. Tyson’s attorneys alleged in court filings that she’d already stashed away $17 million of his earnings, perhaps counting her $4 million Potomac, Md., house and the Bentley, Rolls Royce and two Mercedes that Tyson left behind.

Lady Troubles June 21, 1986 Accused of striking a male parking lot attendant in the mouth after asking a female attendant for a kiss. Assault charges in Los Angeles are dropped in a $105,000 settlement. Sept. 12, 1988 Sends tennis player Lori McNeil, an alleged “victim” of Tyson's violence, 1,000 roses to wish her luck in the U.S. Open. Nov 30, 1988 Sued by a Manhattan furrier for $92,000, claiming the money was payment for an expensive sable coat Tyson and wife Robin Givens had bought for her mother, Ruth Roper. Dec. 12, 1988 Sandra Miller of New York sues, claiming he fondled and propositioned her in a nightclub. Jury finds Tyson guilty of battery and awards Miller $100. Dec. 15, 1988 Lori Davis of Long Island, N.Y., files a $1 million suit, alleging he grabbed her buttocks while she was dancing at a nightclub. June 21, 1989 Divorce from Givens finalized, with a reported $8 million settlement. Aug 17, 1989 Sued by former publicist to Givens, Phyllis Polaner, for sexual assault and harassment. Spring, 1990 Topless dancer Trena Archie of Los Angeles files paternity suit. March 28, 1991 Admits paternity of an eight-month-old girl born to Kimberly Scarborough of New York. July 20, 1991 Miss Black America Pageant contestant Desiree Washington, 18, files rape complaint in Indianapolis. Aug. 7, 1991 Former Miss Black America Rosie Jones, 27, files $100 million lawsuit, alleging Tyson “assaulted, battered and humiliated” her by grabbing her buttocks. Settled for unspecified damages. Aug. 13, 1991 Miss Black America Pageant, listing 10 women as alleged victims, files a $21 million lawsuit against Tyson for “maliciously and willfully [engaging] in a conspiracy to ravage, rape and despoil’’ the pageant. The suit is later dropped in a settlement. 1991 Robin Young alleges that Tyson “forcefully grabbed’’ her “in a sexually suggestive and embarrassing fashion, causing her great humiliation" during a photo session at a Manhattan nightclub. March 26, 1992 Sentenced to 10 years in prison [four suspended] and fined maximum $30,000 in the 1991 rape case. June 2, 1995 Settles a civil suit filed by Desiree Washington. March 9, 1998 Sherry Cole and Chevelle Butts file a $22 million lawsuit claiming Tyson verbally and physically abused them at a Washington bistro after his sexual advances toward one of them were spurned. Settled out of court. January 13, 2003 Reaches a $6.5 divorce settlement with his second wife, Monica Turner.

A similar 1989 settlement ending his tumultuous marriage to actress Robin Givens cost $8 million, after which she dropped a $125 million libel suit against the champ. At least eight other women have sought monetary settlements against Tyson in civil suits through the years. At least three others have filed paternity suits.

In 1995, after serving three years for the rape of 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington, Tyson reached a financial settlement in a civil suit. His attorneys also settled with former Miss Black America Rosie Jones, who alleged Tyson assaulted and humiliated her by grabbing her buttocks. They also cut a deal with organizers of the Miss Black America Pageant, who, in a lawsuit accusing him of victimizing 10 women, described Tyson as a “serial buttocks fondler of black women."

So, based on his track record, you’d assume squeezing a few bucks out of Iron Mike would make for simple lawyering. But not if the bank account is dry, as attorney Sanford K. Ain found when he tried reaching a settlement for Turner, a pediatric resident at Georgetown University Medical Center and the half sister of Maryland Lt. Gov.-elect Michael Steele.

After months of negotiation, Ain got a deal promising a $6.5 million payout. Tyson’s former wife gets the deed to the couple’s palatial estate in Farmington, Conn. -- which just returned to the market for $4.75 million -- and the fighter has to make up the difference in future earnings.

Question is, what can the Connecticut estate fetch in today’s tattered economy? A year after buying the 56,000-square-foot mansion for $2.8 million, Tyson himself tried selling it for $25 million. The asking price dropped to $22 million, then $13 million and later $5 million. The current listing boasts 38 bathrooms, a shooting range, an Olympic-size indoor pool and a 3,500-square-foot nightclub. According to a blurb in The Wall Street Journal -- it’s the state’s largest house.

Asked why Tyson was moved to buy the estate in the first place, Ain laughed. “Because it was there," he said. Probably the same impulse accounts for a fleet of luxury cars and motorcycles, a good number of which his lawyers now can’t find the titles for.

But if the Connecticut mansion doesn’t sell by the time Turner gets her $6.5 million, it’ll end up belonging to Tyson again, anyway. The fighter is to begin immediately paying his ex-wife 12.5 percent ($750,000) of the first $6 million he earns, followed by 20 percent ($1.2 million) of the next $6 million and 25 percent of everything over $12 million.

“We can’t compel him to earn money necessarily, but we do have the house," offers Ain, asked if he feared Tyson might call it quits and shortchange his ex. “And we have a lien on his house in Nevada.

"He’s got to make a living. He has got to pay his bills. If he doesn’t pay his bills, he’s got to sell his property. If he sells his property, then he gets cash in. And then she gets a percentage of that."

Ain, who huddled for two days in November with Tyson and his attorneys, portrays the ex-champ as a decent guy who never tried to duck his obligations during settlement talks. He describes Turner as a “very private" person who remains protective of Tyson, refusing to listen to six-figure offers from British tabloids to tell her story.

Lastly, he says, she shouldn’t be foolishly miscast as a gold-digger.

“She is a very intelligent, very caring, decent person who is very comfortable with herself," he says of Turner, who met Tyson at a 1990 party hosted by comedian Eddie Murphy. “She had a relationship with him that was actually quite good for a while, and would continue to be good if he had permitted it. He didn’t. But they were married for five years, together for longer than that. And have two kids together, who she is charged with the responsibility of raising. And she wants to provide them with a decent life. And she has not lived extravagantly herself. The cars she has are ones that he bought. She didn’t go out and buy these cars. He did. And she wants her children to be well-educated, with a decent lifestyle and with some level of security. And she is protective of him.

“He, on the other hand, if you look at his lifestyle and how much money he has earned over the years and what he has for it now, has been pretty self-destructive."

But does the ex-champ have a sense of his downfall?

“I think at some level he does," Ain suspects, “but I am not sure he can help himself."

If true, that's as sad as the prospect of Tyson being cast on a reality TV show.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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