Tyson Owes Trainer $4.4 Million

A federal appeals court Thursday reinstated a $4.4 million award that a jury decided boxer Mike Tyson owes former trainer Kevin Rooney for unjustly firing him.

"We feel we won a tremendous victory," Rooney's lawyer, Michael Coyle, said after speaking by phone with Rooney, who was in England training another boxer. "We're both overjoyed with it. We've been vindicated."

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based its ruling on the findings of a New York Court of Appeals' review of an oral contract in which Tyson agreed to keep Rooney as his trainer "for as long as the boxer fights professionally."

The federal court had looked to the state court for guidance on state contract law.

Tyson's lawyer, Lawrence Weinstein, did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.

Coyle said his client will be entitled to $7.6 million when interest is added to the jury award.

In addition, Rooney will seek another $20 million in post-trial motions that the federal appeals court said must now be considered in Albany by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas McAvoy.

McAvoy presided over a September 1996 trial in which a jury awarded more than $4.4 million to Rooney, who had sued Tyson for $49 million.

The judge later tossed out the award, saying it was improper because Rooney failed to prove Tyson had a contract with him.

Rooney trained the former heavyweight champion for the first 35 fights of his career, but was fired in 1988. Tyson later said he became angry about the trainer's public comments about his then-marriage to actress Robin Givens and a contract dispute with ex-manager Bill Cayton.

During the 1996 trial, lawyers for Tyson said Rooney was paid more than $4 million for training Tyson. In 1992, Rooney's petition for bankruptcy protection was approved. He owed more than $1 million to the Internal Revenue Service and to casinos owned by Donald Trump. He listed his lawsuit against Tyson as a potential asset.

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