Roger Mayweather pleads not guilty to felony charges

Boxing trainer Roger Mayweather pleaded not guilty Thursday to felony charges that he beat and choked a female boxer at an apartment he owned last August.

A judge set trial for June 1 on coercion, battery-strangulation and battery causing substantial bodily harm charges.

Mayweather, 48, declined to comment following the brief appearance before Clark County District Court Hearing Master Kevin Williams. There was no mention of a Tuesday court date Mayweather missed when he sent word through his lawyer that he was needed at the gym.

Mayweather is a former boxer who trains fighters in Las Vegas including his undefeated 32-year-old nephew, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

He remains free on $13,000 bail.

Mayweather’s lawyer, Jack Buchanan, said Thursday he intends to file a legal challenge to the evidence and the charges.

Buchanan has said he heard inconsistencies in the preliminary hearing testimony of Melissa St. Vil, a fighter Mayweather used to train.

St. Vil, 26, testified Jan. 15 that Mayweather punched and choked her nearly to unconsciousness before police arrived and found the two struggling in a Las Vegas apartment Mayweather rented to another man, Cornelius Lott.

Buchanan said he’ll show that St. Vil started the scuffle, gave conflicting accounts to boxing reporters afterward, and hoped to use it to obtain a civil financial settlement.