Boxing: Boxing: Former Boxing Champ Nunn Pleads to Drug Charges

Associated Press - May 23, 2003


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Former middleweight champion Michael Nunn pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Friday to conspiring to distribute coc aine.

Judge Harold Vietor scheduled Nunn's sentencing hearing for Aug. 25. The conspiracy plea is punishable by a minimum of five or 10 years in federal prison, depending on the judge's determination of drug quantity at the sentencing hearing. The maximum penalty is 40 years and a fine of $2 million.

Nunn won two world titles and earned at least $6 million as one of the world's top boxers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Federal authorities arrested Nunn after they said he bought a kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds, of coc aine from an undercover agent in August.

At his plea, Nunn stipulated that he conspired to distribute coc aine from February 1993 until Aug. 6, 2002. He further stipulated that he bought a kilogram of coc aine on Aug. 6, 2002, with the intent to distribute.

He was arrested on that date at a Davenport hotel after he negotiated with an undercover officer to purchase the coc aine.

One of Nunn's two co-defendants pleaded guilty earlier this month to storing and distributing coc aine for Nunn and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Wayne D. Reiner agreed that he conspired to distribute more than five kilograms of coc aine with Nunn and Lawrence D. Brown.

Reiner agreed that he was involved in storing and distributing coc aine for Nunn from 1993 to 1995, and that the men distributed between 2 and 15 kilograms of coc aine.

A federal grand jury indicted Reiner, Brown and Nunn in January for conspiracy to distribute at least five kilograms of coc aine in Scott County between 1993 and 2002.