Seldon sentenced to year in jail
Former boxing champ guilty of child endangerment
Posted: Friday June 26, 1998 11:24 AM
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Seldon faced a maximum five-year prison sentence (David Taylor/Allsport) |
CAMDEN, New Jersey (AP) -- Former WBA heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon was sentenced Friday to five years probation plus 364 days in the county jail for smoking pot with a 15-year-old girl and taking part in "sexual activity" with her last year.
The jail sentence was stayed until Wednesday to allow Seldon's attorney to apply for house arrest or a work release program for his client in place of the jail term.
Seldon pleaded guilty in May in Superior Court here to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a more serious charge of sexual assault as well as drug and weapons offenses.
The fighter faced a maximum five-year prison sentence on each of the endangerment counts. Superior Court Judge Stephen W. Thompson said Seldon will have to register his whereabouts with police under Megan's Law, as a convicted sex offender.
Seldon had remained free on $50,000 pending sentencing.
Seldon, 31, admitted picking the girl up in Atlantic City on November 17 and taking her to his house in Gloucester Township. There, the girl smoked a marijuana joint and he took sexually provocative photographs of her, he said at his plea.
Following the sentencing, Seldon was contrite. "I'm terribly sorry for everything that happened. I'm not a bad person. I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he said.
The prosecutor agreed with the defense lawyer there were no indications that force was used. The sexual assault charges were filed after the girl went to police headquarters several days after the incident and said Seldon had raped her.
Seldon, the WBA's eighth-ranked heavyweight, has not fought since losing his title to Mike Tyson on September 7, 1996, in Las Vegas. Seldon lasted just 109 seconds.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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