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Jail is clearly not a place for persons with discriminating palates or world-class athletes who need to push their bodies to the limit. Superstar boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., also known as Inmate 01363917 in the Clark County Detention Center, is Exhibit 1-A for both of those points.
Mayweather, who in 2011 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence charges that he beat up the mother of three of his children and threatened his son, is in the middle of serving a 90-day sentence. On Monday, through his attorney, Richard Wright, he complained of the treatment he was receiving in the jail and sought to be released and serve the remainder of his time on house arrest.
On Wednesday, Judge Melissa Saragosa denied the order. Mayweather is scheduled to be released on Aug. 3, assuming he has good behavior.
Saragosa pointed out that most of Mayweather's issues inside the jail are self-inflicted. A doctor he hired to examine him said he wasn't eating properly, wasn't drinking enough water and was suffering from a lack of exercise.
On Thursday, John Donahue, the deputy chief of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in the Detention Services Division, released a 2 1/2- minute video in which he painstakingly refuted Mayweather's complaints, point by point.
Dr. Robert Voy, a prominent Las Vegas physician, said in a statement to the court on behalf of Mayweather's request for house arrest that the fighter is consuming only 800 calories a day. But Donahue pointed out the CCDC was in compliance with American Correctional Association standards and was offering Mayweather at least 2,800 calories per day.
The nutrition part, we're maintained by ACA standards, which we're accredited by, the facility is. We're required to have him, a minimum, of 2,800 calories a day. He is getting that. He is choosing not to eat all his food. He's picking and choosing between cookies and some other snacks that he has available to him. He's not eating the food that's being given to him.
Floyd Mayweather is 43-0 (AP)
Mayweather is noted in boxing for his conditioning. His last fight was on May 5, when he won a unanimous decision over Miguel Cotto to claim the World Boxing Association super welterweight title. His superior conditioning played a major role in that bout.
After the bout, rapper 50 Cent, the boyfriend of Mayweather's described to Martin Rogers of Yahoo! Sports how Mayweather on the spur of the moment in the middle of the night during NBA All-Star Weekend in February opted to skip a visit to a strip club and ran six miles.
"I thought he was crazy. I thought he was joking. I have never before just seen a person start randomly training like that. We were so far away from the gym, we weren't even close. Before that, we were going to a strip club.
"That is what he is all about, working hard and showing that kind of extreme work ethic no one else has. He showed a lot of spirit and determination. Everyone understands what it takes to be successful but he does it better than anyone.
Donahue, though, seemed exacerbated as he explained why it was impossible to accommodate Mayweather's demands to be able to exercise better.
[Related: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. maturing while preparing to defend title]
Mayweather is choosing not to do exercise he could do in his cell or during the one-hour daily trip he makes to the prison's recreation area.
As far as the exercise, he has the ability to exercise in his cell, if he so chooses to. He can do pushups, situps, inverted situps, that are pushups, if you will, but he's choosing not to do that. He does get one hour of rec yard a day. He can go out and shoot basketball, if he wants to, or he can run around the rec yard. His claim is that he usually runs five miles a day. No inmate in the Clark County Detention Center can run five miles a day. It's not geographically possible within the confines of the facility.
Donahue also went to great length to explain that Mayweather's jailers weren't out to get the celebrity or treat him poorly by segregating him from the rest of the prison population.
He said Mayweather was kept in protective custody for his own good.
With his status as a celebrity, if you will, he is considered a high-profile inmate. To ensure his safety and, really, the safety of the other inmates, we have to go ahead and lock him down. We have to keep him separated from the general population. If we put him in the general population, the inmates wouldn't stop. They'd actually be seeking him out, looking for money. Whether it was to hurt him or [to obtain his] five minutes of fame by hurting the inmate, or whether it was him having to protect himself, we would be in a liable situation. We have to make sure he's locked down, he's protected. It kept coming out that we were looking to punish, punish upon punishment, and that's not the truth. We are looking to protect him. That's our role.
Mayweather was cavalier about his pending jail sentence while talking to reporters in early May, before the fight with Cotto. Clearly, two weeks in prison have caused him to change his mind.
Though Saragosa shot down his request, that doesn't mean Wright will stop trying to find a way to secure an early release for Mayweather. That kind of legal work is expensive, but when a guy earns at least $32 million, as Mayweather did for the Cotto fight, he can afford to pay a lot of high-priced lawyers.
It would be a shock only if Wright or co-counsel Karen Winckler aren't in court again soon, arguing some other point for Mayweather's early release.
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