Floyd Mayweather Jr. ordered to pay Manny Pacquiao $114,000
Five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been ordered by a federal judge to pay about $114,000 to rival boxer Manny Pacquiao for avoiding questioning from his lawyers in a Las Vegas defamation lawsuit case — in which Pacquiao says Mayweather falsely accused him back in 2009 of using performance-enhancing drugs.
According to reports, attorneys for Manny Pacquiao lost an earlier bid to put an end to the defamation lawsuit against Floyd Mayweather Jr. with a more severe sanction — a default judgment for the Filipino boxer. But on Monday, Pacquiao’s camp won more than $113,000 in legal fees plus an additional $774 in costs for what U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks called “Mayweather’s obviously intentional decision not to appear for his court ordered deposition.”
Previous reports have stated that Manny Pacquiao — a Filipino boxing champion against whom the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. is constantly measured — has alleged that the American fighter defamed him by claiming that Pacquiao used performance-enhancing substances, which the Filipino boxer vehemently denied. Pacquiao filed the lawsuit in Las Vegas back in December 2009 and has sought unspecified damages.
“Calling a professional athlete a cheater is the most serious charge one can make,” the lawsuit said. “Accusing an athlete of using performance-enhancing drugs — however baseless and lacking in evidence — is toxic.”
The two award-winning boxers have never faced-off in the ring, and the court drama playing out in Las Vegas has been seen as an obstruction to their much-awaited bout.
Mark Tratos and Laraine Burrell (lawyers of Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas) and Daniel Petrocelli and David Marroso (lawyers of Manny Pacquiao in Los Angeles) did not immediately respond to messages on Wednesday about the recent court order.
News of the court ruling came about the same time Las Vegas police reported handling a residential disturbance call which involved boxer Mayweather at his daughter’s mother’s house last week. However, no one was arrested and no criminal charges were filed during the incident on September 9.
According to county records, a Mayweather business entity owns the property, and Melissa Brim — the mother of Mayweather’s daughter, lives in the house.
Las Vegas police officer Bill Cassell said that the police found no evidence of a physical fight, and that no one in the house wanted to file a police report on the incident. Cassell called the case closed.
An aide to Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said that without a police report, the incident had no bearing on an unrelated domestic violence case for which Floyd Mayweather Jr. served two months this summer in a Las Vegas prison. He was released August 3, and is currently not on probation.
Last December, Mayweather pleaded guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges stemming from a hair-pulling, arm-twisting assault on his former girlfriend, Josie Harris, while two of their three children watched the whole incident.
Harris and the children now live in the Los Angeles area.