Florida prosecutors dropped a charge of battery against Gervonta “Tank” Davis on Monday, following a statement by the alleged victim that she did not wish to proceed with the prosecution.
Davis was arrested in Broward County on December 27 and charged with battery causing actual bodily harm for allegedly striking Vanessa Posso, the mother of Davis’ daughter, with a “closed hand,” leaving her with an abrasion on the inside of her upper lip.
TMZ later posted audio of a series of 911 calls made by Posso. “Please help me! I need help, please,” she said in one. “I’m trying to go home, I have a baby in the car, and he attacked me in front of the kid. And now he’s messing up my tires. Please help me! He’s going to kill me!”
The arrest cast immediate doubt on Davis’ January 7 pay-per-view clash with Hector Garcia, but the fighter vehemently denied the accusations. In a subsequently-deleted social media post, he declared that “I never put my hands on my child mother nor my f–king daughter are you f–king crazy!! I’m not a monster.”
The fight with Garcia went ahead when Posso recanted her story three days after Davis' arrest, posting on Instagram that “The state of our relationship has been in a fragile space and Gervonta and I were both at fault for the argument. While the emotions were running high I made an unnecessary call to law enforcement in an intense moment while I was frantic. Gervonta did not harm me or our daughter.”
Davis had previously been charged with simple battery domestic violence in Coral Gables, Florida, after video showed him putting his hand around Posso’s neck at a charity baseball game in February 2020. Miami-Dade prosecutors abandoned those charges on December 13.
Davis, who has a professional boxing record of 29-0 (27 KOs) and recently stopped Ryan Garcia in the seventh round of a highly anticipated lightweight matchup in Las Vegas, is presently serving 90 days of house arrest following a hit-and-run incident in his native Baltimore in November 2020, in which he ran a red light, struck another car, and fled the scene.
