A Baltimore judge on Thursday denied an emergency motion to release Gervonta “Tank” Davis, the boxing champion she incarcerated after learning that he was spending his house arrest for a 2020 hit-and-run at a Four Seasons Hotel and a $3.4 million condo that he bought in Silo Point.
Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy rejected the request to schedule a hearing and modify Davis’ sentence in a one-sentence order.
Handy had sentenced Davis to 90 days of home detention plus three years’ probation in connection to a hit-and-run that injured four people — including a pregnant woman — on Nov. 5, 2020.
She ordered him to spend the house arrest in Baltimore instead of his mansion in Parkland, Florida. That’s when Calvin Ford, Davis’ longtime coach and trainer, stepped forward in court and volunteered his home.
When she found out that he was not staying there, Handy scheduled a hearing on June 1 and at the conclusion directed sheriff’s deputies to immediately take Davis into custody.
Michael Tomko, Davis’ attorney, reported that the house had one bedroom and could not accommodate his client’s 24/7 security team.
Tomko said his client did what he asked him to do. Throughout the hearing, Tomko repeatedly told the judge to “blame the bad lawyer.”
Next, Tomko filed a motion for sentence modification and then submitted an additional filing in which he reported that Davis’ mansion was burglarized and ransacked.
Meanwhile, Davis called the judge “crazy” and remarked that she was “doing stuff that not right to me” from jail during an Instagram Live.
Handy denied the motion for sentence modification.
Davis then hired a new attorney, Andrew Graham, who filed an emergency motion for sentence modification.
Graham wrote that Davis did not intend to disobey a court order and stated that any error was a result of the “lack of advice” that his prior counsel gave him.
Davis is at an “important stage of his career” and has to “maintain a strict training regimen to remain at the top of his game,” Graham said. If that routine was put on hold, he said, that could potentially result in the loss of millions of dollars in earning potential.
Plus, he said, Davis “sincerely apologizes” for his “emotional and ill-advised public comments about the Court and its sentence.”
In a subsequent letter, Graham reported that he spoke with Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, who consulted with the prosecutor assigned to the case, David Owens, and both did not oppose Davis’ immediate release “so that he may resume his training regimen.”
Davis had been incarcerated at the Baltimore Central Booking & Intake Center but he no longer shows up in the online inmate locator.
In an email, Lt. Latoya Gray, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the agency is not releasing information about Davis because the case is high profile.
Davis, 28, who grew up in West Baltimore, has a perfect 29-0 boxing record with 27 knockouts. He declared that he’s “definitely the face of boxing” after defeating Ryan Garcia in a fight in April in Las Vegas.
