Former junior-middleweight boxing champion Jermell Charlo was acquitted Wednesday of assaulting a woman at his Dallas condominium complex in May.
Houston's Charlo (31-1, 15 knockouts) faced felony domestic assault and misdemeanor assault charges for allegedly choking and striking the woman on May 16, 2018. The woman testified at the trial, Charlo's attorney, Arnold Joseph, said.
The boxer rejected a plea deal despite facing a three-to-10 year sentence if convicted, and upon the reading of the verdicts Wednesday in Dallas, "it was like a 200-pound weight had been lifted off of his head ... it was the difference of day and night between the time the verdict was being read and the moment he was cleared," Joseph said.
Charlo, 28, fought twice as the criminal case hovered. In June, he successfully defended his World Boxing Council 154-pound belt for the third time by defeating former champion Austin Trout by majority decision at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
He knocked down Trout twice in that bout, but in a Dec. 22 return against veteran Tony Harrison at Barclays Center, Charlo suffered a unanimous-decision loss on scorecards of 115-113 twice and 116-112.
"Who amongst us could keep focused with something like that on our mind?" Joseph asked. "He won't say the loss was a result of that (legal burden), but he could've trained longer and better if he wasn't preparing for trial.
"He stood firm, rejecting the plea deal because he couldn't agree morally to accept blame for assaulting a woman when he knew he didn't."
Charlo, whose twin brother, Jermall, is an unbeaten middleweight, is planning a return fight in the early summer against Harrison.
