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Postponed Evidence hearing delays IBF bribery trial
Posted: Friday April 07, 2000 03:33 PM
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- The trial of International Boxing Federation founder Robert W. Lee Sr. and several others accused of taking bribes to manipulate the organizations rankings had its start postponed Friday. Opening arguments had been scheduled to begin Friday, but at mid-morning they were postponed until Tuesday for a further hearing on whether secret videotapes can be admitted as evidence. Some of boxing's biggest names, including promoter Don King and former heavyweight champion George Foreman, are to be heard in the federal courtroom over the next three months. Lee and others in the group are accused of taking $338,000 in bribes to rig the rankings, which are critical to how much a fighter can earn. Prosecutors say jurors can expect to hear several weeks of testimony from a key informant, C. Douglas Beavers, the IBF's longtime rankings chairman. Beavers began cooperating with investigators after being approached by the FBI in May 1997, and ultimately taped dozens of conversations with Lee which prosecutors and Beavers maintain demonstrate that favorable treatment stemmed from payoffs. The U.S. attorney's office has agreed not to prosecute Beavers and granted him immunity. FBI agents also secretly videotaped three meetings Lee had with Beavers in a hotel room. U.S. District Judge John W. Bissell on Thursday barred lawyers from mentioning the videos in opening statements. Videotapes from two of the meetings probably will not be allowed to be shown to the jury, Bissell said in response to a defense motion that the videos violated Lee's constitutional protections. In one of those two videos, Beavers is seen removing a package of $5,000 from his ankle and giving it to Lee on Dec. 18, 1997, according to a sworn statement filed by an FBI agent. Investigators say the money is a payoff from a promoter. The defense argued that investigators should have gotten a court order for video surveillance since Lee had an "expectation of privacy" in a hotel room in which he was staying. The judge did not bar the third video because Lee was not staying in that room. In that video, from Oct. 21, 1998, Beavers takes money from his ankle and gives some to Lee and some to a former IBF official, Don Brennan, and Lee puts an envelope on a table and says it is "turkey" from "Fuzzy," the FBI said. In court papers, Beavers said that "turkey" was a payoff and "Fuzzy" referred to King, who prosecutors maintain was a prime beneficiary of Lee's manipulations.
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