PITTSBURGH (AP) — Former lightweight boxing champ Paul Spadafora pleaded guilty Thursday to resisting arrest and simple assault on police officers who responded to a domestic dispute at his Pittsburgh home in 2016.
FILE – This undated photo provided by the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety shows Paul Spadafora of Pittsburgh. Spadafora has pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and simple assault on police officers who responded to a domestic dispute at his Pittsburgh home in 2016. The 42-year-old boxer was sentenced Thursday, March 22, 2018 to time served and probation. Spadafora also was accused of stabbing his brother and kicking his mother during the dispute, but those charges were dropped. (Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety via AP)
Spadafora, 42, was sentenced to time served and probation. Authorities have said he challenged the officers to fight, tried to push one down the stairs and spit on another. He was shocked with a stun gun and taken into custody.
Spadafora also was accused of stabbing his brother and kicking his mother during the dispute, but those charges were dropped when his family failed to appear at court hearings.
Spadafora’s lawyer said his client was extremely intoxicated at the time but has since completed rehab and is staying sober. He said Spadafora is now training boxers at a gym in Punxsutawney and asked that he be allowed to serve his probation there.
“It’s hard for me to be clean when I’m in Pittsburgh,” Spadafora said.
He told the judge he started to drink alcohol at age 6 with his father.
“If I would never have a drink in my body, I would never be in the county jail or the penitentiary,” he said. “I wouldn’t be in any trouble.”
Spadafora won the vacant International Boxing Federation lightweight belt in 1999 but surrendered the title in 2003 and was charged with shooting his then-girlfriend.
He spent 13 months in a state prison boot camp, and several boxing comebacks have been pockmarked by alcohol-related arrests.
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