Olympic boxer Oshae Jones was admitted to a diversion program Thursday to settle misdemeanor charges against her stemming from an altercation with police last summer.
If Ms. Jones, 25, completes a 3-1/2 hour “Safety+Justice Challenge” class at the Correctional Treatment Facility, the charges against her related to the July 31 incident outside her home near Lawrence Avenue and Wall Street will be dismissed.
To enter the diversion program, she pleaded no contest Thursday morning to the counts of failure to disperse, obstructing official business, and resisting arrest. She appeared via speakerphone before Toledo Municipal Court Judge Michelle Wagner from Philadelphia, where defense lawyer Sean Walton said she is training for her next boxing bout.
If for some reason she does not complete the class, she is due back in court May 2. But by midday Thursday she was registered to participate in the class on March 16, court records show.
Ms. Jones was arrested early on the morning of July 31 after police received a call about a large crowd including people with weapons, police records showed. Police said those they directed to disperse included about 15 people crowding around a porch in the 2700 block of Lawrence.
According to N. John Bey, another of Ms. Jones’ lawyers, she was awakened by banging on her door, came downstairs, and was told her boyfriend had been arrested during the disturbance outside. Ms. Jones and another woman who carried a baby began filming the police while they also tried to get a phone that the arrested man was carrying.
An argument ensued among Ms. Jones, the woman with the baby, and several officers, after which one of them, Officer Ashlyn Pluff, attempted to handcuff Ms. Jones. Video showed that during the arrest, Officer Pluff struck Ms. Jones in the side of the head.
Ms. Jones and her legal team in August published a video demanding the three charges’ dismissal and an apology from the city. Officer Pluff received a written reprimand in November both for striking Ms. Jones and for using profanity toward her, although an internal affairs report found the officer’s actions were justified and alleged that Ms. Jones had “escalated the situation.”
Mr. Bey said Thursday that while the resolution of the criminal case against Ms. Jones is satisfactory in that regard, Ms. Jones still anticipates filing a civil lawsuit against the city. The criminal charges cost her both opportunities to box and commercial endorsements she might have obtained through her athletic reputation, he said.
“The diversion program is a way so it will not be on her record,” the lawyer said, and it allows her to move ahead with three upcoming scheduled fights. But “this has really derailed her from her professional career,” he said.
“My client never wanted to file a civil lawsuit, but she wanted her life back. She wanted exoneration,” Mr. Bey said before noting that the video recordings from the scene were given to the city to show what happened.
Ms. Jones won the bronze medal in the welterweight division of women’s boxing during the 2020 Olympics, held in 2021 in Japan.
First Published February 16, 2023, 5:41 p.m.
