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Tyson involved in scuffle

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PHOENIX (REUTERS)—Police said Thursday there was insufficient evidence to pursue assault charges against former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson over a scuffle at a Phoenix topless bar with a dancer and her boyfriend.

“What we found was that it was a he-said, she-said thing,” Sgt. Lauri Williams, a Phoenix police spokesman said. “There was no evidence to suggest anything else.”

Tyson, a convicted rapist, was accused of grabbing dancer Casey Paxton by the shoulder, spinning her around and head-butting her in the left eye as he verbally abused her in the Hi-Liter Gentlemen’s Club April 7.

Paxton’s companion Marcus Smith alleged he was knocked backward by a left to the chin from Tyson when he tried to intervene.

Witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the events and police were unable to find any evidence of physical damage to either individual, Williams said.

Tyson’s attorney Darrow Soll said the decision came as no surprise. “There’s simply no evidence to suggest that Mike Tyson engaged in any criminal conduct,” Soll told Reuters. “It was clear from the beginning that this was a sham and was nothing more than an effort to further a personal-injury suit.”

The Phoenix incident was the second major brush with the law this year for Tyson, the self-styled “baddest man on the planet.”

In February, Las Vegas prosecutors declined to file sexual-assault charges against him in two separate cases, saying that it was impossible to determine if the women involved were raped or participated in consensual sex.

Tyson served three years in prison for a 1992 rape conviction. His career has been marked by outbursts of rage, including biting a chunk out of former champion Evander Holyfield’s ear and biting Lennox Lewis’ leg during a January news-conference brawl.