Boxer Adrien Broner hit with $4M judgment in Strip attack
A Las Vegas judge approved a $4 million judgment against four-weight world champion boxer Adrien Broner who was sued by a man he punched and knocked unconscious on the Strip.
The 2017 attack was captured on video as Broner shoved a woman and punched Carlos Gonzalez, knocking him unconscious.
The fighter then repeatedly dodged service of the lawsuit filed by attorney Ash Ganier in early 2018 before District Judge Adriana Escobar granted a motion for default judgment on Tuesday.
Gonzalez, a single father who is now 30, still suffers from frequent headaches and lost his driver’s license because of lingering medical issues, including nausea and dizziness, his lawyer said. The Las Vegas resident also chipped a tooth, which resulted in permanent damage.
“The incident itself was entirely unprovoked, and he’s really a menace to society,” Ganier said. “It’s impacted (Gonzalez’s) daily life in many different ways.”
Because Broner ignored the lawsuit for so long, Ganier acknowledged that collecting the money from the judgment could become another struggle.
“We’re going to do everything we can to collect against Adrian Broner, but that’s an uphill battle, for sure,” Ganier said.
But Broner has not avoided media attention or the law since the Strip attack. As recently as February, Broner was arrested outside MGM Grand Garden, but prosecutors declined to pursue trespassing charges against him, according to court records. Instead, he pleaded guilty to a battery charge in connection with the punch on the Strip.
The boxer had been banned from MGM Grand in November 2019, according to TMZ. He was told to leave the premises earlier that year ahead of a Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury weigh-in, and refused.
The two had never met before Gonzalez was “cold-cocked,” Ganier wrote in court briefs. “Broner’s actions were obviously malicious and intentional.”
The attorney also wrote that Broner was “not being held accountable for his violent behavior, but rather, rewarded in light of his celebrity.”
Last month, Broner was jailed for contempt of court in Ohio in connection with a lawsuit filed by a woman who said the boxer sexually assaulted her at a nightclub. In that case, he had failed to pay a more than $800,000 judgment against him, according to news reports.
Broner was jailed in 2008 on charges of battery and armed robbery, according to the Las Vegas lawsuit. He was arrested on a sexual battery charge in Georgia in 2018, and those charges were later dropped, according to the lawsuit and news reports.
“Broner’s boxing career had essentially weaponized his body, which he used to violently attack (Gonzalez), Ganier wrote in court papers.
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