California Boxing Official Under Investigation : District Attorney’s Office Looking Into Extortion Charges Against Denkin

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Friday that it is investigating allegations of extortion against Marty Denkin, who runs the Los Angeles office of the California Athletic Commission.

The San Jose Mercury News reported Friday that Denkin was under investigation because of charges by boxing managers that they paid cash and jewelry to Denkin as inducements for him to approve bouts for their boxers.

The newspaper cited three unspecified managers, who said they had given Denkin cash and jewelry totaling more than $10,000 in the last 2 years.

Denkin is the executive officer of the commission, the No. 2 person in the agency, under Executive Director Ken Gray.

“An investigation of Mr. Denkin’s activities began last fall and is continuing,” said Al Albergate, spokesman for the district attorney’s office. “The investigation is ongoing, and that’s all we want to say about it at this time.”

Denkin heatedly denied the charges in the Mercury News story, saying the allegations were made by “guys with axes to grind.”

“There’re a lot of people out there (boxing managers) who hate me,” he said.

“I’m not going to give you any names, but I’ve fined guys as much as $1,000 over the past 2 years, fined some boxers up to $500 and suspended maybe 50 people.

“It’s all nonsense, it’s stupid.

“And I’m also unhappy that the D.A. would release this type of information, about an investigation, without giving me the courtesy of a phone call to tell me about it. I haven’t heard one word from the D.A.’s office.”

Denkin, who said he was once an investigator for the district attorney’s office, has make-or-break power over pro boxers in California. Only he on the commission staff approves or disapproves of all pro main events in California.

The Mercury News did not identify any of the “six managers and promoters” who it said had been interviewed by the district attorney’s office, but a source on the boxing commission staff said that one of the managers is Ricardo Maldonado of Los Angeles.

Maldonado, it was learned, was involved in a physical altercation with Denkin at a Sports Arena boxing show last year, after which Denkin fined him $1,000.

Moreover, according to a Southland boxing promoter, Maldonado has not paid the fine.

The official charges against Denkin began when another commission staff member in the Sacramento office, George Johnson, told Gray of charges described to him by boxing managers.

“People started talking to me a couple of years ago about Denkin, about this kind of stuff (cash payments and jewelry gifts),” Johnson said Friday.

“But I couldn’t go to anyone with it. All I had was rumors. All of a sudden, I get called on the carpet by (Ken) Gray, who tells me Denkin has told him that a kid had boxed twice within 3 days at a San Francisco show where I was the commission representative.

“I blew up over that, and asked Gray why he didn’t take a look at what people were saying about Denkin. That’s how I got involved in it.”

Johnson said he had been telephoned by a district attorney’s office investigator, but refused to be interviewed over the phone.

“I told them to come up here, show me some identification, that then I’d talk,” he said. “I’m told I will be interviewed by the (California) Department of Consumer Affairs.”

The Athletic Commission is a state agency within the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Johnson said the amount allegedly paid to Denkin by managers is more than the $10,000 cited by the Mercury News.

“It’s a lot more than that, a lot more,” he said.

Gray, who was at an Athletic Commission meeting in San Francisco Friday, was not available for comment.

Denkin, 54, who lives in West Covina, served a 4-year term on the 8-member Athletic Commission before being appointed to his staff position, for which he earns $40,000 a year.

The Denkin matter is another in a series of body blows to the California Athletic Commission in recent years.

For several years, the commission has been under fire for its supervision of state legislature-mandated neurological exams, required of all pro boxers in California.

The exams, available at only a few locations around the state, have been a nightmare of logistics and communication for boxers, managers and promoters.

Some have charged that the exams are culturally discriminatory, in that the written portions are in English. About half of all pro boxers in the state are Latinos.

In a 1987 Times story on the exams, three neurologists who administered the tests for the commission were critical of the thoroughness of the program. Gray, upon reading the story, fired all three.

In 1988, the commission went 5 months without meeting. Five consecutive meetings were canceled for lack of a quorum. One commissioner, former pro football star Roosevelt Grier, had missed 28 of 30 meetings since being appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

And Denkin himself had been criticized by some in the boxing community for accepting occasional refereeing assignments at World Boxing Council title fights. Some view it as a conflict of interest for a boxing commissioner, who has make-or-break power over bouts in the state, to be a paid referee.