Ex-boxing champ Pavlik gets into drug court program

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Former boxing champ Kelly Pavlik will enter the Mahoning County Drug Court program after pleading guilty Thursday to assault and breaking and entering.

The drug court started in 1997 to help people overcome their addictions and stay out of jail. Pavlik retired from boxing in 2013.

The once-middleweight champion appeared before Judge John Durkin on an earlier indictment on two counts of felonious assault and the new charge of breaking and entering.

The assault charges stemmed from an August 2016 incident when Pavlik was accused of firing a pellet gun at Brian Bailing while both men were at Pavlik’s Canfield home.

The new breaking and entering charge was filed in connection with an incident sometime between October 24, 2011, and November 21, 2011, where Pavlik was accused of trespassing in a home on the 4600 block of Hopkins Road in Boardman.

Judge Durkin handed down a six-month suspended sentence to Pavlik for the less serious assault charge. The drug court sentence was issued in connection with the breaking and entering plea.

Damian Billak, Pavlik’s attorney, said both the breaking and entering and the assault charges are the result of Pavlik’s abuse of alcohol.

Billak said that Pavlik has been sober for eight months and Pavlik and his family are looking forward to completing the alcohol portion of the drug court program so he can build on his sobriety and be a productive member of society.

On the breaking and entering charge, Pavlik was a suspect in the break-in of a vacant Boardman home in 2012. Billak said Pavlik and some friends were in the home because it is on a list of haunted houses in the area – and Pavlik and his friends were “ghost hunting.” Pavlik had access to the home but a door was locked and when he went to open a window he cut his hand, leaving behind blood that was later matched to his DNA.

Billak said the drug court program takes between a year and two years to complete. If Pavlik does not complete it, the six-month suspended sentence he received for the assault charge will be imposed.