Basketball star Iverson faces criminal charges
David Morgan
Professional basketball star Allen Iverson agreed on Thursday to surrender to police next week on charges he stormed into a house and threatened two people with a gun while looking for his wife, police said.
Iverson, 27, the Philadelphia 76ers guard who led the National Basketball Association in scoring last season, threw his wife naked out of their $2.4 million mansion two days before he and his uncle Gregory Iverson burst into the apartment of his cousin Shaun Bowman at 3 a.m. on July 3, one of his alleged victims told an emergency operator.
Displaying a handgun sticking in his waistband, the 6-foot, 165-pound (183 cm, 75 kg) Iverson allegedly threatened the two occupants while he demanded to know where his wife Tawanna and cousin were. She and Bowman, who was said to be her confidant, had gone into hiding.
On Thursday authorities searched Iverson's home and his uncle's Philadelphia high-rise apartment before announcing charges including criminal trespass, simple assault, criminal conspiracy and other counts against the two men. Iverson also was charged with weapons violations.
City Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson phoned Iverson's attorney and made arrangements for the basketball player to surrender next Tuesday, saying he would be fingerprinted, photographed and arraigned before a magistrate.
"I hope the sports fans of America don't think this is invidious, but this case is just another case," District Attorney Lynne Abraham told a news conference shortly before the issue of arrest warrants.
NO SPECIAL TREATMENT
"I don't expect that Mr. Iverson's going to be treated any differently than anybody else charged with the same offenses."
Sixers coach Larry Brown said the charges would have no effect on Iverson's standing on the Philadelphia team.
"He's hurtin'," Brown told a news conference after speaking to Iverson. "I'm just hopeful that this thing gets resolved and, you know, this kid can move on with his life. That's the only thing that's important right now."
On Wednesday evening a cheerful-looking Iverson was caught by news cameras playing basketball with friends outside his home and helping his smiling wife carry groceries into the house.
But Charles Jones, 21, who was inside Bowman's apartment with a 17-year-old youth, told police that Iverson was in a rage when he forced his way into the home on July 3.
"He put her out the house naked. It's like the third time he did it. Again he told her the next time he see her he was going to kill her, and this, that, and the other," Jones was quoted as saying in the transcript of his 911 call published by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"He had a gun on his hip. He was sitting there threatening to shoot me," Jones added.
Investigators spent days mulling over the claims made by Jones and the teen-ager before announcing charges.
"I'm very confident that the people who are making the charges are telling the truth," Johnson said on Thursday. "Everything that could have been done in this investigation, everything that could have been done is being done."
In 1997 Iverson was barred from one NBA game and given three years' probation after Virginia state troopers found a pistol in his car.
On Thursday police would not say whether their search of Iverson's home had turned up a gun. Johnson said there was no sign that Iverson had a permit to carry a firearm.
