Former heavyweight champ Bowe gets 18 months in prison
Associated Press - January 16, 2003
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) - Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in federal prison for the 1998 abduction of his estranged wife and children.
Bowe was in court for the three-minute hearing, at which U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen followed through on an appeals court's October sentencing order.
Mullen twice previously had given Bowe lighter sentences that were rejected by the appeals court.
After Bowe is released from prison, he must serve two years' supervised release.
Bowe's lawyer, Robert Altchiler, indicated the fighter could return to the ring after he serves his time.
``He's a young and vibrant 35,'' Altchiler said. ``My thinking is that he will fight again. ... He's a fighter. He's a good fighter. He's still physically able to do it, he's still mentally able to do it. It's the only way he's made money in the past.''
Bowe - never known for good training habits even in the prime of his career - was noncommital about boxing again.
``I'm going to take my time with this thing,'' he said. ``In terms of my boxing career, I don't even think of that.''
In 1998, Bowe went to Judy Bowe's Charlotte home, forced her and the children into a car and set out for his Fort Washington, Maryland, home. At a restaurant in Virginia, Judy Bowe called her sister, who guided police to the restaurant.
In his prime, Bowe was a heavyweight fighter who won his first 31 fights, 29 by knockout, to earn a title shot against Evander Holyfield.
He beat Holyfield in November 1992, becoming heavyweight champion. But Bowe, who won a silver medal in the 1988 Olympics and earned more than $75 million in the ring, fought only 10 more times, including a loss in a rematch with Holyfield.
