Anderson charged with felony after police chases

Jared Anderson faces a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison

Undefeated heavyweight prospect Jared Anderson is back in hot water, as ESPN and local Toledo outlet WTVG report that “The Real Big Baby” was charged with “third-degree felony fleeing a police officer” after allegedly leading officers on a trio of high-speed chases last Thursday, culminating with Anderson crashing into a median.

ESPN has a detailed play-by-play of proceedings, so I’ll just stick with bullet points.

• Anderson (16-0, 15 KO) sped up from the speed limit of 70 mph to 91 mph as he passed the first officer.
• Said officer pursued Anderson for over five miles, with the latter “ultimately reaching speeds over 130 mph” before the officer called off the pursuit for safety reasons. I’ll pause to give some props to the officer for that, at least; there was an incident in Florida recently where another LEO attempted to chase a fleeing suspect and went into oncoming traffic before smashing into a truck.
• Anderson again gunned it into the triple-digits when officers attempted another traffic stop, with this chase lasting less than a mile.
• The third chase, “as Anderson headed southbound and weaved through traffic,” went just over a quarter mile before Anderson “cut across all three lanes and crash[ed] into the median.”

Per the Joslyn Law Firm, fleeing becomes a third-degree felony when “[t]he operation of the motor vehicle by the alleged offender was a proximate cause of serious physical harm to persons or property; or the operation of the motor vehicle by the alleged offender caused a substantial risk of serious physical harm to persons or property.” The reports don’t mention injury to any parties besides Anderson’s car and the median, but that sure sounds like “substantial risk” to me.

The punishments include “[u]p to five years in prison and a fine of up $10,000” and/or “a person’s driver’s license being suspended for three years to life.” That’s assuming it goes to trial and he’s convicted, of course; odds are Anderson will plead down as he did on a misdemeanor firearms charge last December.

At time of writing, Anderson is still booked to headline against Ryad Merhy on April 13th. The 7.5-month layoff would mark the longest of his career; I’m reminded uncomfortably of The Last Great Fight detailing how a young Mike Tyson’s handlers kept him as busy as possible to keep him out of trouble.

Also, as a stupid aside: searching “Jared Anderson” by relevance on our Getty library produces a pair of images from NASCAR driver Jordan Anderson, which is incredibly funny to me.