Tyson's Jail Outburst Linked To Medication Denial, Attorney Says

Mike Tyson's attorney said the embattled fighter's outburst in jail during which he threw a television was linked to his being denied his anti-depressant medication prescribed by his personal psychiatrist.

Tyson was placed in solitary confinement after he threw a TV set in the day room at the Montgomery County (MD) Detention Center where he is serving a one-year sentence. He received the jail time from a judge after he pleaded no contest to assaulting two motorists last year. At press time, he was awaiting a disciplinary hearing regarding the outburst.

"The reason I thought the sentence (earlier this month) was harsh and wrong was that something like this could happen, his treatment could be interrupted," Paul Kemp, a Tyson attorney, told USA Today. "I'm not saying it should have happened, but anybody who knows the history of Mike Tyson knows that he's got chronic, long-term depression."

A spokesperson for the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation declined comment on the medication issue. But Kemp said a psychiatrist, working under contract at the jail but not a full-time employee, decided to taper off Tyson's dosages and then deny him the medication the day before and the day of the TV throwing incident.

Kemp said Tyson's personal psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Goldberg, head of the Georgetown University Medical School Department of Psychiatry, prescribed the medication and that Tyson refused to meet with the jail psychiatrist.

"Mike wanted only to speak to his own treating psychiatrist ... He didn't want to speak with this guy, so he yanked his Zoloft (Tyson's medication)," Kemp said.

Kemp added that Russell Hamill, acting director of the department of correction, had Tyson put back on medication the day after the incident. "He didn't know that he'd been taken off it," Kemp said.

As far as the television, Kemp concluded, Tyson has already replaced it.