Boxer's trial date set in parade case

Taylor pleads innocent to charges

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/GAVIN LESNICK - 03/30/2015 - Boxer Jermain Taylor leaves Pulakski County Circuit Court with his attorney, Jimmy Morris (right), March 30, 2015. Taylor pleaded innocent to accusations he opened fire and threatened a family after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock earlier this year
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/GAVIN LESNICK - 03/30/2015 - Boxer Jermain Taylor leaves Pulakski County Circuit Court with his attorney, Jimmy Morris (right), March 30, 2015. Taylor pleaded innocent to accusations he opened fire and threatened a family after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock earlier this year

A Pulaski County circuit judge has set a Sept. 15 trial date for boxer Jermain Taylor on criminal charges that he threatened a Little Rock family of five with a gun at this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

Monday was the 36-year-old Taylor's first Circuit Court appearance to answer the allegations. He did not speak during the five-minute hearing to schedule his trial.

Represented by attorney Jimmy Morris, Taylor pleaded innocent to five counts of aggravated assault and single counts of terroristic threatening and misdemeanor marijuana possession. He faces up to 46 years in prison because the charges are alleged to have been committed in the presence of children. His next court appearance in the case, a pretrial hearing, was scheduled for Aug. 31 by Judge Leon Johnson.

Taylor also faces first-degree battery and terroristic-threatening charges in the shooting of his cousin and threatening of another man at Taylor's Maumelle home in August. He is already scheduled to stand trial on those charges in June. They carry a potential maximum of 26 years in prison.

Monday was also Taylor's first appearance before Johnson in the 27 days since the judge allowed him to enter a residential substance-abuse treatment program on the condition that Taylor not be released without the judge's permission. His lawyer asked the judge if Taylor could be temporarily released from treatment to attend to his personal affairs, but Johnson declined to grant permission.

Morris said Taylor has four sets of lawyers representing him in his criminal cases, business affairs and divorce proceedings, and the boxer needed the time out of rehabilitation to consult with them.

Taylor was allowed to enter rehab after spending about a month in a psychiatric hospital at his lawyers' request. Prosecutors had also questioned Taylor's competency to stand trial, but state doctors cleared him after an examination.

The judge has said Taylor must remain in some kind of locked-down facility, either jail or treatment program, until he decrees otherwise, which could be after the charges against Taylor are resolved. At the request of prosecutors, the judge had Taylor arrested after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day incident.

According to testimony, police who were investigating the sound of gunfire near Taylor's gym at the corner of Wright and Wolfe streets just after the Jan. 19 parade found Thelton and Toya Smith and their three children two doors down from Taylor's two-story, red-brick gym. Thelton Smith, 40, told officers that Taylor had just fired a shot at his head and was fleeing in a green sport utility vehicle.

Officers, who had to cut off Taylor's vehicle to get him to stop, arrested the former Olympian, seizing a pistol Taylor had in his back pocket, according to police.

Metro on 03/31/2015

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