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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief There were a lot of question marks regarding Quinton Jackson coming into UFC 92, as many were leery of where his head would be at with the looming legal issues from his July arrest still awaiting him. He showed that with a new camp, and an increased focus on his training, that he's as dominant as ever and he's staring down a shot at newly crowned Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans as a result. The next question, then, was what would happen when his case saw daylight in the courts. Well, that question won't have to be answered, as a report from MMAWeekly states that this morning, Thursday, January 8th, Quinton Jackson changed his original plea from not guilty to guilty in accordance with a plea bargain that he has accepted.
His original charges were "one felony count of evading while driving recklessly, one felony count of evading a peace officer and driving against traffic, three misdemeanor counts of hit and run with property damage, and one misdemeanor count of reckless driving." The deal he struck drops that down to "one misdemeanor count of reckless driving and one felony count of evading a peace officer and driving against traffic."
In essence, he's received a diversion on his felony count, as the sentencing has been pushed to January 7th of 2010, and if he satisfies all of the requirements of the plea agreement the felony charge will be dropped. On the other hand, if he does not meet all of the requirements he will be charged and sentenced on both counts.
As part of the plea agreement, Jackson will serve 200 hours of community service, he has agreed to pay restitution on all charges and he will be seeing his doctors regularly who will in turn report to the court on his physical and mental well being throughout the year.
Penick's Analysis: Going into UFC 92, my main concern with having Rampage fight was the fact that this issue had yet to be resolved in the courts and I wasn't sure how he would handle going through training and into the Octagon with the outside distractions for this. He showed that both mentally and physically he was as ready to fight as ever. Just as prevalent was the perception that as the star fighter that he is he was being unfairly protected and the UFC was not holding him accountable for his actions. His plea deal today is him taking responsibility for what happened. Clearly it was easier to justify a deal in this situation when there were no drugs or alcohol involved, and the fact that he's undergoing constant doctor's supervision is a very important piece of this deal. I'll have more to say on this later in the week, but at first blush this deal is very fair and at the same time is not letting him off the hook for what happened on July 15th.
[Rampage Art Credit - Corey Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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