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King conspiracy Promoter identified in boxing corruption trial
Posted: Monday March 27, 2000 07:42 PM
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Federal prosecutors preparing for the corruption trial of IBF founder Robert Lee Sr. acknowledged Monday what their charges strongly suggested: Promoter Don King is an unindicted co-conspirator. The matter arose during a pretrial conference on what to ask about 135 potential jurors in a questionnaire they are to get Tuesday. Lawyers will begin picking a jury on Thursday, and opening arguments are expected next week. The hearing also revealed that defense lawyers intend to raise racial issues at the trial. Lee and three other International Boxing Federation officials were indicted in November, accused of taking $338,000 in bribes to rig the IBF's fighter rankings. The indictment, without using names, referred to seven promoters, seven managers and 23 boxers who either participated in or were affected by the schemes, which allegedly began soon after Lee founded the IBF in 1983. King's offices in Deerfield Beach, Fla., had been raided in June, and evidence in the case released this year named King, as well as other big promoters such as Bob Arum and Cedric Kushner. All seven promoters and seven managers in the indictment are considered unidentified co-conspirators, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose P. Sierra said. He declined to comment on why they had not been charged. Several, including Arum and manager Ivan Feris Chadid, who handled 10 of the 23 boxers, have already provided sworn statements to prosecutors outlining payoffs to ensure favorable treatment by the IBF, the only one of boxing's three major governing bodies based in the United States. Lee, 65, of Fanwood, and his son, Robert Jr., 38, of Scotch Plains, will be the only defendants on trial. Francisco Fernandez of Colombia, the South American representative of the IBF, remains at large. Don Brennan, 86, of Warsaw, Va., past president of the U.S. Boxing Association, a group that became the IBF, was severed from the trial on Monday due to ill health. Brennan, a former Virginia boxing commissioner, suffers from congestive heart failure and would probably be unable to withstand the strain of the trial, which is expected to last three months, said his lawyer, Gordon A. Wilkins. A government doctor who examined Brennan agreed that he is not physically competent to stand trial, Sierra told U.S. District Judge John W. Bissell, who agreed to the severance. Bissell barred Lee from any participation in the East Orange-based IBF, pending outcome of the trial. At the request of prosecutors, Bissell in January appointed a monitor to oversee the IBF. During Monday's hearing, lawyers for the Lees urged the judge to add questions to potential jurors regarding their attitudes toward King, as well as race and the justice system. The Lees and King are black. "The thrust of this case is Don King," Lee Jr. lawyer John J. DeMassi said. "Jurors may not have too many opinions about boxers, they may not know too many boxers, but I dare say they know Don King." Lee lawyer Gerald Krovatin agreed, and suggested that the judge needed to ask more than a single question among the 80 on the questionnaire to gauge evidence of racial prejudice. The key witness against the Lees is to be the IBF's longtime rankings chairman, C. Douglas Beavers, a Virginia boxing commissioner who secretly recorded over 100 conversations with Lee and others after being approached by the FBI. He has not been charged. King, who is called "Fuzz," "Fuzzy Wuzzy" and "Cuz" by Lee and Beavers, maintains he never paid the IBF to improve rankings or get a big bout, spokesman Greg Fritz said. "Our stance has been all along is that we simply pay the licensing fees and sanctioning fees required by the governing bodies to sanction world title fights," Fritz said.
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