The World Boxing Council has begun an investigation of Shane Mosley in the wake of the recent publication of Mosley’s sworn testimony that he used BALCO’s potent and highly controlled performance-enhancing drugs in the lead-up to a 2003 fight against Oscar De La Hoya.
“It was a real surprise to read that Mosley has confessed that he did take those medicines, those drugs that are totally prohibited by the WBC,” said Jose Sulaiman, the WBC’s president. “The WBC rules state that we must have a hearing. This is a matter of serious concern to us.”
About three months after Mosley won a WBC junior middleweight title in that 2003 fight, he sat before a grand jury describing the potent regimen of steroids and EPO he had used for his training. The Daily News published portions of his testimony earlier this month, along with doping calendars.
Mosley has maintained that he did not know the drugs he was taking were banned or illegal.
Monday, Sulaiman directed his group’s legal counsel to gather evidence on the Mosley matter and put it before the WBC’s 29-member board of governors, which can then vote on sanctions. The rules allow the organization to issue disqualifications or severe fines, even after a fight has concluded.
“Thus far the WBC has seen only press reports, and must therefore investigate any available evidence and review it, in terms of the WBC rules and regulations’ anti-doping provisions” said the WBC’s legal counsel, Robert Lenhardt.
Lenhardt’s efforts will coincide with a hearing, scheduled for Jan. 15, in an old defamation case that Mosley brought in federal court in California in the spring against BALCO founder Victor Conte. The suit was dropped by Mosley in August and immediately refiled in New York state court.
The California defamation suit claims that Conte told newspapers, including The News, that Conte watched as Mosley injected himself with EPO and that he knew what he was using. Conte’s lawyers have filed a motion seeking attorney’s fees and sanctions in that case, which they called an “abusive and meritless action.”
They invoked California’s laws designed to protect plaintiffs from meritless lawsuits meant to silence public participants. Mosley’s lawyer, Judd Burstein, filed a cross motion asking for attorney’s fees and costs in defending Conte’s motion. When contacted by The News Monday night, Burstein cut short an attempt to ask him about the WBC investigation.
Conte, who is in possession of the grand jury transcripts because he was an original defendant in the BALCO prosecution, told The News Monday night that he is “more than willing to cooperate with any investigation of Shane Mosley’s use of performance-enhancing drugs.”
I just hope they leave Shane Mosley alone till after the fight against Antonio Margarito. I don’t want Mosley to say “I lost to Margarito because I was not focus, thanks to the World Boxing Council.”
What’s your opinion?
BY TERI THOMPSON and NATHANIEL VINTON / Photo by Gene Blevins
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