NBA Star Allen Iverson In Hot Water
Philadelphia 76ers star Allen Iverson will be charged with four felony counts and related charges for forcing his way into his cousin's apartment with a gun, authorities announced Thursday.
The announcement came the same day police searched his suburban mansion and an apartment where his uncle lives, looking for a gun that Iverson was allegedly carrying the night he showed up at the apartment looking for his wife, Tawanna Iverson.
Iverson will be charged with criminal trespass, simple assault, terroristic threats, gun offenses and a variety of other felonies and misdemeanors, District Attorney Lynne Abraham said.
His uncle, Gregory Iverson, who allegedly accompanied Iverson to the apartment, was to be charged with criminal trespass, simple assault, terroristic threats and other offenses.
Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said he will make arrangements with Iverson's attorney for Iverson to turn himself in. Johnson said that could happen as early as Thursday night.
"We had two complaints we felt were credible. Detectives did a very thorough, complete and professional investigation," Johnson said. "Everything that could have been done in this investigation is being done."
"I don't expect Mr. Iverson will be treated any different than anyone else," Abraham said.
Iverson, a former league MVP, was accused of going to the Cobbs Creek Court apartment complex to look for Tawanna and cousin, Shaun Bowman, who lives there. Neither was there, said Charles Jones, 21, who has lived in the apartment since March.
Jones, who met with police Tuesday, told reporters Iverson had a gun when he forced his way inside the apartment early July 3 and threatened Jones and another man.
Iverson has no gun permit, nor does he have a gun registered in the state of Pennsylvania, police said.
Iverson, whose cornrows, tattoos and dazzling play on the court have made his enormously popular among young people — his Sixers jersey is the NBA's top seller — has had numerous brushes with the law.
As a teenager, he was arrested in a Hampton, Va., bowling alley brawl in 1993 and spent four months in prison before then-Gov. Douglas Wilder granted clemency. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 1995.
In 1997, Iverson pleaded no contest to a gun charge after police near Richmond, Va., stopped a car in which he was a passenger and found a gun belonging to Iverson and two marijuana cigarettes. A marijuana-possession charge was dropped.
Iverson completed 100 hours of community service, two years of drug testing and three years' probation, after which his record was expunged.