Bonanza Apartments manager Michael Staley, right, talks to Ron Button about renting an apartment. Staley, 42, was fresh out of prison, homeless and drunk when he was paid $100 to fight a vagrant on camera for a "Bumfights" video in 2002, but he since has cleaned up his life. Photo by Sara Tramiel. In the shadow of the Stratosphere, Michael Staley, left, fights with another man in the controversial video "Bumfights" in 2002. Review-Journal File Photo Michael Staley flips through a Bible in his home and office. Staley, who once was featured in a controversial "Bumfights" video, now manages the Bonanza Apartments on Bonanza Road near Main Street. Photo by Sara Tramiel.

Michael Staley was fresh out of prison, homeless and drunk when two men approached him five years ago and offered him a quick way to make $100.

He would have to fight another homeless man, on camera.

The men didn't have a hard time convincing him to fight a vagrant near the Stratosphere tower, though Staley says he immediately felt he'd made a terrible mistake.

Months later, he learned that the fight, during which he repeatedly pummeled the other man, was part of the making of a controversial "Bumfights" video that has been the subject of criminal charges and a civil lawsuit in San Diego, as well as outrage among advocates for the homeless.

The fast-selling videos feature footage of homeless men in street fights, and have been sold over the Internet and in stores.

After Staley's parole officer saw him in a news clip about the videos, he was sent back to prison. Staley already had served 10 years for burglary. Now he'd have to serve at least two years more.

His life was clearly a mess, Staley says, and headed in a very bad direction.

"I was an alcoholic. I did drugs. I was a habitual criminal."

But today, five years later, Staley's life story has taken an unlikely turn for the better.

He's sober, for one thing. He also has been hired as manager of the Bonanza Apartments on Bonanza Road near Main Street, where he's responsible for renting available units and making regular large bank deposits.

"Look what I'm protecting now," the 42-year-old says with a smile while sitting in his small office/living room.

People now call Staley "Preacher Mike" because of his strong Christian faith, his ever-present Bible and his penchant for theologizing.

He says he took advantage of rehabilitation and job training programs in prison and in the Casa Grande transitional facility so that he could eventually help others.

"I did the wrong," he says. "Now, let me do the right. I want to make an effect."

Staley hopes to one day be the pastor of his own church. In the meantime, he says he's in the perfect place to minister to others and serve as proof that anyone can turn his life around.

"Here, I am able to counsel the same men (like him), to look out for them," he said. "If they want to talk, I can relate."

As if to prove his point, a man by the name of Ron Button shows up just then asking to rent an apartment. Soon, he's confiding in Staley about his own struggle with alcoholism.

"I was drinking myself to death," he tells Staley. "But I'm doing fantastic now."

Staley tells him to fill out an application and to come back the next day.

"We'll sit down and have a Pepsi," he says.

Later, Staley says: "Do you see the divine intervention? Do you see how ironic that was? There was something there to make him want to talk."

Staley says he's now grateful for the "Bumfights" episode that sent him back to prison.

"I was a young, ignorant man," he says. "The gambling, the drugs, the women and my own immaturity got me. Looking back on it ('Bumfights'), I see it as a blessing."

Now, as a free man, he has a second chance.

"This allows me to get my integrity back," he says. "It kind of restores me."

Before he was sent back to prison, Staley had hoped to join the civil lawsuit filed in San Diego County against the "Bumfights" filmmakers and had a lawyer to represent him in the matter, he says.

But once incarcerated, he says he never heard from the lawyer again.

"I really don't care," he now says. "It's not about money. You get richness by interacting with humanness."

The makers and distributors of the "Bumfights" videos reached confidential settlements last year with three homeless men who sued for physical and emotional damages.

Four men associated with the production of the videos pleaded guilty in 2003 to criminal misdemeanor charges in San Diego County. They were sentenced to probation and volunteer work.