Pavlik receives probation

The middleweight also received 50 hours of community service.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Middleweight boxer Kelly Pavlik received 50 hours community service and one year's probation for punching a Mahoning County deputy sheriff.
Pavlik, 23, of Cornell Street was sentenced Monday in municipal court by Judge Robert A. Douglas Jr. The judge also imposed a $250 fine, the clerk's office said.
On Dec. 20, Pavlik reached a plea agreement and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor assault charge, amended from a felony, and was found guilty. He faced up to six months in jail.
As part of the agreement, resisting and disorderly charges, both misdemeanors, were dismissed.
What happened
The charges were filed Dec. 9, just hours after a 2 a.m. fight outside Shenanigan's, a Market Street bar.
Deputy Todd A. Mariani, working a side job at the South Side bar, said in his report that Pavlik screamed threats at the bouncers as he and others who appeared intoxicated were being escorted out.
Pavlik, restrained by friends, threatened to beat the deputy and have his job. The boxer then punched the deputy, who used pepper spray in an effort to gain control, reports show.
Mariani and Pavlik wrestled, with the boxer trying to pull the deputy's jacket over his head. A city police officer on the scene used pepper spray on Pavlik, with some of it hitting the deputy.
"I would like to apologize to my many loyal fans by saying that out of this whole mess I feel I owe an apology to you for this embarrassing situation that should have never happened," Pavlik said.
"I still believe I wasn't at all responsible for what happened that morning, but it is very true that I should not have been there at all, that hour or any hour, for something to happen."
After the plea in December, Pavlik's Youngstown attorney, Mark Hanni, said his client apologized to the deputy.
Promises change
Hanni said then that Pavlik will never put himself in an embarrassing situation again and offers his apologies to the community.
"He plans on being middleweight champion of the world," Hanni said in December. "He recognizes that he will be judged inside and outside the ring. He will represent our community with pride."
Pavlik said he agreed to the plea so he could be sentenced and that litigation would not interfere with his boxing career.
Pavlik's career has been on hold for more than two months after he suffered a hand injury in his last fight.
Pavlik had been in line for a bout with WBC and top middleweight contender Winky Wright, but Wright has re-entered negotiations with middleweight world champion Jerome Taylor for a title fight.
The options for Pavlik, who is ranked third by the WBC and the WBO, are that he can get the winner of the Taylor-Wright title bout or the winner of the Felix Sturm/Maselino Masoe WBO title bout to be held in Hamburg, Germany, on March 11.
Sturm, from Hamburg, is 24 and 1 and Masoe from South Aukland, New Zealand, is 26 and 2 with 25 knockouts.
"My right hand is still a little tender, but the swelling has gone down and I will be in the gym soon," said Pavlik (27-0).
Vindicator staff writer Patricia Meade and correspondent Bob Roth contributed to this report.