Gervonta Davis, one of boxing’s biggest stars, has avoided jail time for a hit-and-run crash that left four people hospitalized, including a pregnant woman.
Baltimore circuit court judge Althea M Handy sentenced the 28-year-old fighter to 90 days of home detention followed by three years’ probation on Friday afternoon at the Elijah E Cummings Courthouse, only 13 days after Davis stopped Ryan García in the seventh round of the year’s most anticipated fight.
The three-division world champion, who is unbeaten in 29 professional bouts with 27 knockouts, will serve out the sentence at the home of longtime trainer Calvin Ford, the Guardian has learned. He must also complete 200 hours of community service.
According to court records, Davis was identified by eyewitnesses as behind the wheel of a 2020 Lamborghini Urus SUV with two other passengers at around 1.53am on 5 November 2020 when it ran a red light, struck a 2004 Toyota Solara and crashed into the fence of a 7-Eleven at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr and Washington boulevards in the city’s Ridgely’s Delight neighborhood. All three then fled in another car that arrived on the scene, authorities said.
In February, Davis pled guilty to charges of leaving the scene of an accident involving bodily injury, failing to notify an owner of property damage, driving on a revoked license and running a red light. Baltimore circuit judge Melissa M Phinn subsequently rejected a deal between Davis’s counsel and the state’s attorney’s office that would have allowed him to serve 60 days of unsupervised home confinement after the pregnant woman injured in the crash, Jyair Smith, spoke out against the agreement.
“I begged Mr Gervonta Davis, I looked him in his eyes,” Smith said. “I said, ‘I have to get home to my daughter, I’m pregnant.’ He never once came over to help me. He got his things and left.”
Davis had faced a maximum of 50 months in prison if found guilty on all remaining charges in the case.
A squat southpaw nicknamed Tank, who sprang from abject poverty in west Baltimore and became the sport’s second-youngest world champion at just 22 years old, Davis has moved the needle like few other US prize-fighters in recent memory, capturing belts at 126lbs, 130lbs and 135lbs while selling out arenas from coast to coast and emerging as a mainstream attraction.
He cemented his status as the face of US boxing in last month’s eagerly anticipated showdown with García, a matchup of America’s two most popular fighters which managed to exceed commercial expectations. The promotion generated an estimated 1.2m pay-per-view buys and approximately $22.8m (£18.0m) in ticket sales at the T-Mobile Arena, the fifth-highest live gate in Nevada boxing history.
Neither Davis nor his promoters immediately responded to messages requesting comment from the Guardian.
His legal troubles don’t end there. Davis, whose history of gender-based violence is well-documented, has another court date on 26 May in Florida after a December incident in which he was accused by the Broward County sheriff’s office of battery. The plaintiff, the mother of Davis’s daughter, has since filed an affadavit requesting to have the charges dismissed.
