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Gervonta “Tank” Davis, the Baltimore-born boxing champion, has added a lawyer with a history of defending celebrities to his legal team as he seeks an early release from jail.
In a motion filed Friday afternoon and exclusively obtained by The Banner, Davis’ latest attorney, Andrew Graham, requested the addition of Alex Spiro, who has represented Elon Musk, Jay-Z, Megan Thee Stallion, Alec Baldwin and Robert Kraft among other high-wattage clients.
In May, Davis was sentenced to 90 days of home detention for a 2020 hit-and-run that injured four people, including a pregnant woman. But Baltimore Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy learned that Davis was staying at a Four Seasons Hotel and a $3.4 million condo he bought in Silo Point instead of the home of his trainer, Calvin Ford. As a result, Handy ordered Davis to be taken immediately into custody on June 1.
Davis has since filed two motions for sentence modification, both of which Handy has denied. While it is unclear what legal avenues Davis has left to pursue for an early release, hiring Spiro signals Davis’ willingness to pull out all the stops in his case.
Spiro practices law in New York, and while Musk might be his best-known client, he has a long history of representing pro athletes, including Aaron Hernandez, Charles Oakley and Naomi Osaka. He rose to prominence in 2016 representing Thabo Sefolosha, an NBA player who was found not guilty of resisting arrest and went on to successfully sue the New York Police Department for false arrest and excessive force.
Davis has already fired one attorney, Michael Tomko, who represented him when he was taken into custody and said during the hearing that the boxer was listening to his advice to buy the condo.
Davis now makes his home in Parkland, Florida, and when he was ordered to serve his home detention with Ford, Tomko said the single-bedroom home could not accommodate the boxer’s 24/7 security team.
After Davis was taken to jail, Tomko filed a motion earlier this month saying the boxer’s Parkland mansion had been burglarized.
But Davis also stirred controversy from within jail, when he went on Instagram Live and called the judge “crazy” as he decried being incarcerated. Later, he fired Tomko and hired Graham, who submitted a filing that says Davis takes “full personal responsibility” and “sincerely apologizes” for his “emotional and ill-advised public comments about the Court and its sentence.”
Graham also wrote that Davis believed that he was changing locations in coordination with the house arrest program, and that a representative of ASAP Home Detention had testified that she was aware Davis was staying at the home and condo. Graham suggested that staying in jail for the rest of his sentence could drop Davis from peak condition and result in millions of lost earnings potential.
Davis was initially serving his jail sentence at the Baltimore Central Booking & Intake Center, but is no longer in the online inmate locator. A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services told The Banner the agency is no longer releasing information about Davis because of his high-profile case.
The legal trouble has come on the heels of Davis’ greatest professional success: In April, after defeating challenger Ryan Garcia and improving to 29-0 with 27 knockouts, Davis declared himself “the face of boxing.”
A West Baltimore native, Davis is the best-known product of Ford, a Baltimore-based trainer.
Baltimore Banner reporters Justin Fenton and Dylan Segelbaum contributed to this report
kyle.goon@thebaltimorebanner.com
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Kyle joined The Baltimore Banner in 2023 as a sports columnist. He previously covered the L.A. Lakers for The Orange County Register and myriad sports at The Salt Lake Tribune. He’s a Mt. Hebron High and University of Maryland alum.
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