LAS VEGAS -- Heavyweight boxer Ikemefula "Ike" Ibeabuchi faces up to 30 years in prison in a plea bargain that lets him avoid trial on charges he tried to rape a woman in Las Vegas in July 1999.

Ibeabuchi entered a plea Thursday admitting, no guilt but conceding the state has enough evidence to prove charges of attempted sexual assault and battery to commit a crime.

Deputy Clark County District Attorney Mary Kay Holthus said she will seek prison time for the 28-year-old boxer when he is sentenced Dec. 27 by Clark County District Judge Joseph Bonaventure. Ibeabuchi could receive as little as five years in prison.

"It's a serious crime, and he needs to pay for it with time," Holthus told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Ibeabuchi maintains his innocence, said Catherine Woolf, one of two deputy public defenders assigned to the case. But the boxer feared he could lose a trial on more serious sex assault charges carrying possible sentences of 10 years to life in prison.

He has been in custody since his arrest in Las Vegas in 1999. The native of Nigeria was undefeated with 15 knockouts in 20 fights, and ranked No. 2 by the IBF at the time.

Woolf said Ibeabuchi hopes to resume his boxing career after prison.

However, Ibeabuchi also faces sexual assault charges in Maricopa County, Ariz., stemming from an escort service employee's November 1998 complaint that Ibeabuchi raped her in Gilbert, Ariz.

The Las Vegas case stemmed from 21-year-old outcall service dancer's complaint that Ibeabuchi raped her in a room at The Mirage hotel-casino.

Police reported finding the 6-foot-2, 240-pound boxer barricaded inside the bathroom and said they squirted pepper spray under the door to make him surrender.

Ibeabuchi is expected to be credited for 27 months in custody -- including time at the psychiatric ward at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

More than eight sessions with state and defense doctors yielded conflicting opinions about his ability to understand the charges against him and to assist in his defense.

Bonaventure held a series of court sanity and competency hearings -- and heard arguments from state doctors who sought to compel Ibeabuchi to take anti-psychotic medication. The boxer refused.

Holthus told the Review-Journal that Ibeabuchi deserves prison time because of previous events, including a false imprisonment conviction in Texas in January 1998.

She said Ibeabuchi was the subject of complaints by dancers in Las Vegas in December 1998 and Scottsdale, Ariz., in August 1998, but no charges were filed in those cases.

Woolf said Ibeabuchi doesn't have a history of sexual assault, but does have a history of mental illness.