Sunday, January 11, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Top Rank is not sole target in boxing investigation

Sources: FBI, New York police also looking at boxers, managers, agents, promoters

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

The ongoing probe of professional boxing that resulted in a raid at promoter Bob Arum's office on Tuesday extends beyond Arum's Top Rank Inc.

Sources familiar with the investigation said that in addition to Top Rank and its employees, investigators from the FBI and the New York City police also are looking at activities of numerous boxers, fight managers, agents and promoters.

Robert Mittleman, a long-time boxing manager and agent who was Oscar De La Hoya's first professional manager, said Saturday by telephone from his Florida home that he is aware his name has come up in the investigation along with Top Rank matchmakers Bruce Trampler and Sean Gibbons, boxing manager Cameron Dunkin and Pete Susens, a friend of Trampler.

Mittleman said he planned to hire an attorney to represent him from issues arising from the probe. He declined to say what investigators suspect him of, but sources said that law enforcement wants to speak to Mittleman about his role in the Aug. 12, 2000, fight at Paris Las Vegas between Thomas Williams and Richie Melito Jr. That card was promoted by Don King and featured a WBA heavyweight title fight between Evander Holyfield and John Ruiz.

Williams and matchmaker Robert Mitchell are scheduled to go to trial next week in federal court in Las Vegas on sports bribery charges. Melito won by first-round knockout, but Williams is alleged to have accepted money to take a dive. The fight occurred before fans were allowed in the ballroom.

"I'd rather not go on the record about any of this," Mittleman said. "I appreciate you calling me but I don't think it's right for me to talk to you at this point."

Mittleman admitted he had met "Big Frankie," a man introduced to boxing people by Joey Torres, the once-convicted murderer who managed to get his conviction overturned on a legal technicality. There is a belief among those who have met him that "Big Frankie," who gave out a business card that identified himself as Frankie Manzione of YGJ Company at 3227 Meade Ave., is actually an undercover police detective.

Attempts to reach Manzione were unsuccessful.

"Big Frankie" began showing up at Top Rank about a month after Torres' first and only pro fight, on April 27, 2002, in Anaheim, Calif. Torres won by a second-round knockout over Perry Williams, a bout in which the California Athletic Commission investigated claims of a fix.

Sources have confirmed that the investigators also are trying to determine whether that fight was fixed. Though Arum is not speaking to the media upon the advice of his attorney, at the time of the fight he was very angered and said Torres would never fight again for Top Rank. Arum called the fight "an embarrassment."

Teddy Atlas reported on ESPN2 on Friday that the investigators also are looking at whether a Top Rank-promoted fight between Jorge Paez and Verdell Smith was fixed. Paez and Smith fought twice in 2001, with Paez winning a unanimous decision on April 22, 2001 in Mississippi, and then winning by third-round knockout on Sept. 7 in Mexico. It is unclear which bout Atlas was referring to, though it is likely the rematch.

A former featherweight champion, Paez hasn't been considered a first-class fighter since 1999, when he was knocked out in back-to-back fights by Augie Sanchez and Jose Luis Castillo.

Since then, Top Rank has put him in with men who have poor records, such as Smith, or who were never considered very good fighters.

Smith, who has also fought under the aliases of Tim Brooks and Tommy Bowles, is 44-84-4 in a career that began in 1988.

Paez, who has had a long working relationship with Gibbons, draws extraordinarily high ratings on Telefutura, the Spanish-language network on which Top Rank presents the weekly "Solo Boxeo" series, and Top Rank didn't want to risk having him lose.

Top Rank vice president Todd duBoef and Trampler have been at odds with Dr. Flip Homansky, a member of the Nevada Athletic Commission, and Dr. Margaret Goodman, the chairwoman of the commission's medical advisory board, over Paez's fitness to fight.