Mike Tyson arrested for coke and DUI (Updated 11/19/07)

Mike Tyson Pleads Guilty to Drug Charges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 24, 2007


MESA, Ariz. (AP) -- Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson pleaded guilty Monday to charges of drug possession and driving under the influence stemming from a traffic stop last year as he was leaving a nightclub.

Tyson quietly acknowledged to a judge that he had cocaine and was impaired when he was stopped for driving erratically in Scottsdale on Dec. 29.

He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor DUI count and faces up to four years and three months in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 19. A felony charge of possession of drug paraphernalia and a second misdemeanor DUI charge were dropped, according to the terms of a plea agreement.

Defense lawyer David Chesnoff said Tyson has been clean and sober for eight months.

''It's obvious this was a crime he was committing against himself,'' Chesnoff said.

Police stopped Tyson after the boxer had spent the evening at Scottsdale's Pussycat Lounge. An officer said he saw Tyson wiping a white substance off the dashboard of his black BMW, and that his speech was slurred. Authorities said they found bags of cocaine in Tyson's pocket and in his car.

Tyson told officers later that he used cocaine ''whenever I can get my hands on it,'' and that he preferred to smoke it in Marlboro cigarettes with the tobacco pulled out, according to court documents. He also told police that he used marijuana that day and was taking the antidepressant Zoloft, the documents state.

Since his arrest, Tyson checked himself into an in-patient treatment program for what his lawyer called ''various addictions.'' Defense lawyer David Chesnoff had said previously that he had try to keep the boxer out of prison.

In 1986, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history when, at 20, he knocked out Trevor Berbick. He lost his title four years later when he was knocked out by James ''Buster'' Douglas. By 1997, Tyson's career hit a low point when he bit Evander Holyfield's ear during a fight.

Tyson, 41, recently had been trying to revive his career with a series of boxing exhibitions.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas said earlier this year that Tyson should be put behind bars if convicted, noting that Tyson was convicted of rape in Indiana in 1992 and pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault charges in Maryland in 1999. ''He has run out of second chances,'' Thomas said.

Link!
 
phrozen said:
''It's obvious this was a crime he was committing against himself,'' Chesnoff said.
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yeah, DUI, that's really a victimless crime, he's just hurting himself with that :\
 
Performance Effects: Most laboratory-based studies have been limited by the low doses of cocaine that were allowed. At these single low doses, studies have shown performance enhancement in attentional abilities and increased behavioral and cortical arousal, but have no enhancement of effects on learning, memory, and other cognitive processes. Faster reaction times and diminished effects of fatigue have been observed. Improvements were greatest in behaviorally impaired subjects (e.g. sleep deprived, fatigued, or concurrent use of ethanol) and least improvements were observed in well-rested, healthy subjects. More deleterious effects are expected after higher doses, chronic ingestion and during drug withdrawal, and include agitation, anxiety, distress, inability to focus on divided attention tasks, inability to follow directions, confusion, hostility, time distortion, and poor balance and coordination. Laboratory studies have also demonstrated increased risk taking (rapid braking or steering) and deleterious effects on vision related to mydriasis. Self-reported increases in sensitivity to light, seeing halos around bright objects, flashes or movement of light in peripheral field, difficulty focusing, blurred vision, and glare recovery problems have been reported.

Effects on Driving: Observed signs of impairment in driving performance have included subjects speeding, losing control of their vehicle, causing collisions, turning in front of other vehicles, high-risk behavior, inattentive driving, and poor impulse control. As the effects of cocaine wear off subjects may suffer from fatigue, depression, sleepiness, and inattention. In epidemiology studies of driving under the influence cases, accidents, and fatally injured drivers, between 8-23% of subjects have had cocaine and/or metabolites detected in their blood. An examination of 253 fatally injured drivers in Wayne County, Michigan between 1996-1998, found that 10% of cases were positive for blood cocaine and/or metabolites. On review of accident and witness reports, aggressive driving (high speed and loss of vehicle control) was revealed as the most common finding. Ethanol was detected in 56% of these cases, and all of these drivers lost control of their vehicles. In Memphis, Tennessee in 1993, 13% of 150 drivers stopped for reckless driving were determined to be driving under the influence of cocaine based on observations of behavior and appearance, performance on field sobriety tests, and positive urine cocaine tests.

A 25 year-old male driver, who made an improper turn against oncoming traffic, had a blood cocaine concentration of 0.04 mg/L and 0.06 mg/L of benzoylecgonine, 2 hours after the collision. A 30 year-old female caused an accident after failing to stop at a traffic light; the driver admitted to ingesting a large amount of cocaine ~ 2.5 hours prior to the collision, and 0.32 mg/L cocaine was detected in her blood 1 hour post accident.
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That's courtesy of our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They actually have an interesting site, where they list information about various drugs. Check it out.

Here's the link.
 
phrozen said:
I wonder how coke affects driving though?
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Oh I wasn't trying to imply it's horrible or that doing a single line of crappy coke will render one unsafe to drive. But for his attorney to say that a DUI charge is a 'crime committed against himself' is just retarded. I'm sure you probably drive better on low dose amphetamines than sober, but either way there's DUI laws for reasons - people can't be trusted on the honor system to only use a safe amount, and even further people (once inebriated) aren't necessarily in a position to determine if they're safe anymore (as their idea of what's okay can change once intoxicated).

He may be a heavy user, and w/o the coke he'd be a *worse* driver, who knows? I know that coke makes me feel wretched adn that I'd almost certainly be a worse driver on it, but again that's neither here nor there, he was driving intoxicated and his lawyer's making it seem like he was only hurting himself. It'd be harder to say that had he crashed into another car or hit somebody on a bike :\ . No matter how you slice it, even if coke could help some people drive, he was pulled over for erratic driving if I remember the OP, so he was clearly using too much or mixing or something, because he was pulled over for crappy driving. So no doubt, in his case anyways, he was unsafe to drive.
 
^^ I got it in your first post ;) That statement is ridiculous. If the lawyer said "Mike's cocaine abuse is a crime against himself" then I would agree, but at any time if you have a impaired driver behind the wheel, the crime is against all other drivers on the street, not yourself :( :|
 
I mean, it is against yourself as well, but you pale in comparison to the (likely) hundreds of people you pass while driving, be they in cars or on foot.
 
oh America...

I guess you have to be a prissy white girl like Lohan to get charges dropped after being arrested two months in a row for drunk driving/ cocaine possession8)

Now in general, I think 4 years for any drug posession is terrible, esp if you are not selling/ running a lab... Currently where I reside, the harshest drug penality ever dashed was 7 years in prison for running a huge ecstasy lab- actually many others who were cought doing the same got 3-4 years, out in parole in 2 years... I dunno, your justice system America is really fucked up! Its obvious minorities and those that cannot afford high priced lawyers will likely do more time while the rich get a slap on the wrist. Really messed up
 
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Yeah, I think your views in several threads lately, including the jenna 6 case, are completely off base.

Oh and let's not forget I was helping you, and you clearly edited it (don't worry about it :\ ).

Wait tho! If you actually bothered to read this thread, particularly the whole first page, you'd see that I added plenty.


Hmm, do I have anything else to add? Yeah, I've never talked shit to you or anything like that, and this afternoon I post in agreement to someone who said you clearly were losing the argument in the jenna 6 thread. Then you post over here trying to (wrongly, as stated I have contributed to this thread) call me out, not having read the thread to realize your attack was baseless.


do you want me to think of anything else or was that enough? =D
 
Lol... All I asked was if you agreed/ disagreed with my points or wanted to add something . Cool your jets.
 
lol okay they're cool! You weren't asking me about your post, your post directed at me clearly tried to imply that I was just trolling in this thread which is absolutely not the case, and you know you were just trying to call me out because of the other thread, but it's all good.
 
I had no idea you were a Betazoid… Remarkable!

concerning the other thread, I suppose in a lots of ways this relates to my point regarding unequal and separate justice system... Why should Tyson face 4-7 years, while Lohan gets her charges dropped by the DA after being arrested two months in a row for drunk driving/ cocaine possession...<-- basically the same crime, actually a lot worse since Mike was not DUI. I await your reply.
 
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Ravr said:
I had no idea you were a Betazoid… Remarkable!

concerning the other thread, I suppose in a lots of ways this relates to my point regarding unequal and separate justice system... Why should Tyson face 4-7 years, while Lohan gets her charges dropped by the DA after being arrested two months in a row for drunk driving/ cocaine possession...<-- basically the same crime, actually a lot worse since Mike was not DUI. I await your reply.
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ahhh!!! Damnit I don't want to fight with you - you were wrong when you tried calling me out when I was trying to help *you*. I then told you that you only called me out because of me disagreeing with you in the other thead. Then you try the old switcheroo and tell me that when you said " Do you actually have anything to add?", that you were referring specifically to your above post - suuuuuuure.


But fine, if you're gonna be a dick and are waiting on my reply..

Ravr said:
since Mike was not DUI
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He wasn't? Could've sworn I read something about him admitting he can't hold back when it's around him... and that there was powder on his dash when he was pulled over... and ... oh wait!
the associated press said:
He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor DUI count and faces up to four years and three months in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 19.
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And if you're gonna try to trump that shit like 'lohan didn't get in trouble so why should mike', I'm not even interested in going back and forth with you - just because someone gets off easy doesn't mean everyone else somehow deserves a free pass.
 
And if you're gonna try to trump that shit like 'lohan didn't get in trouble so why should mike', I'm not even interested in going back and forth with you
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I never said Mike should not "get in trouble." But why is it that your justice system treats people who do not share the same color or socio-economic standing differently? Are you saying that justice in America is truly blind? These two cases do highlight my "separate and unequal" notions regarding justice for blacks and whites.
 
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I wouldn't argue that, I do not believe justice is blind in our country. What I was arguing was the 'free pass' idea, that lohan's case should have *zero* bearing on mike's. I know you didn't explicitly say mike shouldn't get in trouble, but we're talking about mike and his situation and just mentioning lohan's case has to have been to illustrate the black/white inbalances in the justice system, which to me seems inappropriate in this case. That may be the first quote in this entire thread that tried throwing race into the equation - I really don't even see how race is a big factor in a scenario like mike's, I think making this a race issue is silly.
 
So, do you honestly think if this was Paris Hilton instead of Mike, she would be charged with 4-7 years in jail?
 
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