DALLAS – Welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. has pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated after crashing his speeding Ferrari in 2019, prosecutors said.
Spence, 32, pleaded guilty and was convicted last week in Dallas County Court of Criminal Appeals No. 2, the Dallas County district attorney's office said Monday.
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Prosecutors said that after visiting multiple bars, Spence was speeding when his Ferrari veered over the median and flipped several times at about 3 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2019. Spence, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, was ejected from the vehicle but didn’t sustain any broken bones or fractures and was treated for facial lacerations.
Spence's attorneys released a statement on his behalf in which he said that after having some drinks with friends he “ended up wrecking my car and nearly killing myself.”
“Fortunately, no one else was involved in the accident and I am most grateful for that,” he said in the statement. “It was an incident that would profoundly change my life.”
He said that during his recovery he thought about "how much I could have lost and how blessed I was to have a second chance at life.”
“Don’t drink and drive. Not one drink. It’s not worth it,” he said.
With the conviction, his driver's license was suspended and he was sentenced to three days in jail but was given credit for time served, according to a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
The boxer, based in the Dallas suburb of DeSoto, became a three-belt welterweight champion in April by defending his WBC and IBF titles in a unification bout in front of a home crowd in Texas.
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