Officials Want Promoters Out Of AC

Bob Arum and Cedric Kushner could be banned from staging boxing matches in Atlantic City if state gaming regulators agree their admissions of bribery make them unfit for casino business licenses.

Prosecutors asked the Casino Control Commission on Thursday to revoke the licenses, based on testimony that Arum and Kushner gave during IBF head Bob Lee's trial.

The commission could consider a related request - barring casinos from doing business with Arum and Kushner - as soon as its Nov. 1 meeting.

The prosecutors also are notifying the state Athletic Control Board of what it is doing so the boxing commission can consider whether to renew their promoter licenses, said John Peter Suarez, director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.

But the licenses would mean little if Arum and Kushner cannot promote fights at casinos.

"We felt it was unconscionable to let them continue in New Jersey," said state Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr., who announced the filings while standing before a boxing ring in a gym in this industrial city across the Passaic River from Newark.

The DGE also is investigating whether Don King, the sport's dominant promoter, should be permitted to have events at the casinos, Suarez said. King, banned from the casinos from 1994-98, has an application pending before the Casino Control Commission.

King did not testify at Lee's trial, but prosecutors called him an unindicted co-conspirator who was the principal beneficiary of Lee's machinations, and played an undercover videotape that an informant said showed a King payoff being divided.

The action came nearly two months after Lee was convicted of tangential charges after a four-month racketeering and bribery trial.

Arum, who operates Top Rank in Las Vegas, testified in June about making a $100,000 payoff in 1995 to the IBF to sanction a title fight between his boxer, heavyweight champion George Foreman, and unranked German fighter Axel Schulz.

Kushner, who was denied immunity, told Lee's federal jury he made payments of $2,500 to $10,000 to the IBF several times a year from 1987-94, and a $100,000 payoff in 1995 for the IBF to order a rematch after Foreman won a disputed decision over Schulz, Kushner's fighter.

In August, the Nevada Athletic Commission accepted a settlement Arum negotiated in which he will pay a $125,000 fine and accept a largely symbolic six-month ban on involvement with any fights in Nevada. Kushner faces a hearing in which he could also be punished.

"We recognize that Nevada has already taken some action. We think ours is more appropriate," Suarez said.

Nevada commission executive director Marc Ratner responded, "The commissioners did what they felt was right."

Arum declined to seek immunity for his testimony, so he could also face criminal charges.

Arum's lawyer, Judd Burstein, called the action "draconian."

"We are very isappointed that the attorney general has chosen to move forward without notice instead of seeking to resolve the matter in the manner in which we resolved it in Nevada and will resolve it in California," he said.

Messages left for Kushner were not returned. His lawyer, Richard Edlin, said he had not yet seen the complaint and had no immediate comment.

Messages left at Arum's Las Vegas office and with his New York lawyer, Judd Burstein, were not immediately returned Thursday.

Boxing commissions in other states are also looking at testimony regarding King and Dino Duva, who had been a principal in his family's boxing promotion outfit, Main Events Inc.

Duva testified in June that he funneled $25,000 to Lee so the IBF would follow its rules and rank one of his fighters as the junior middleweight top contender in 1998.

Duva is no longer with Main Events. His sister, Donna Duva Brooks, also split from Main Events. She can put on fights at New Jersey casinos as long as Dino Duva is not involved, Suarez said.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey decline to say whether King, Arum or Kushner will face criminal charges. Dino Duva testified with immunity.

Lee was acquitted of 27 felony counts, as the jury rejected prosecution claims that the East Orange-based IBF routinely took bribes from promoters and managers to rig its ratings.

He is appealing the conviction and has not yet been sentenced.

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