Boxer Jermain Taylor posts $50,000 bond

Jermain Taylor, right, leaves the Pulaski County jail shortly after noon on Jan. 20.
Jermain Taylor, right, leaves the Pulaski County jail shortly after noon on Jan. 20.

A judge set a $50,000 bail for Jermain Taylor during an initial court appearance after his arrest Monday, saying the boxer will be "treated like anybody else" in her court. He posted bond shortly after noon.

Taylor spoke only briefly during the video hearing before Little Rock District Judge Alice Lightle, saying he understood that he is not to contact the purported victims in his latest brush with the law if he is released.

Taylor is accused of opening fire after pulling a gun on Thelton and Toya Smith and their three kids after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock.

The couple said Taylor became enraged after their 5-year-old son dropped Taylor's championship belt, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in Tuesday's edition.

He faces five counts of aggravated assault, three counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and possession of marijuana.

An attorney for Taylor, S.L. Smith, asked Lightle not to raise Taylor's bail from the $27,000 it had been initially set at when he was booked into the Pulaski County jail Monday night.

Smith, who declined comment afterward, said the family was trespassing on Taylor's property when the incident occurred. He added Taylor is not a "flight risk" and is in training for a future fight that had been set for February but has been delayed.

"He's a well-known person," Smith said. "There's not many places he could hide."

Lightle ultimately opted to raise the bail.

"I don't care who he is," she said. "He's going to be treated like anybody else. It doesn't really matter to this court who he is."

Taylor didn't answer questions about the case as he walked out of the jail.

Taylor was also arrested last August on accusations he shot his cousin at Taylor's home outside Maumelle. Police were called there again in December after a woman reported he threw a brick through her vehicle's window.

A June trial date is set in the shooting. No charges have been filed in the December case.

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Jermain Taylor, 36.

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