Chief of HBO is suspected of assault

HBO Chief Executive Chris Albrecht was arrested in an alleged assault on his girlfriend early Sunday outside the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas.

Hours earlier, Home Box Office Inc. had broadcast the World Boxing Council’s super-welterweight fight from the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Oscar De La Hoya in front of a celebrity-packed sold-out crowd. The fight ended before 10 p.m. Saturday.

Shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday, police officers assigned to the event reported seeing Albrecht fighting with a woman identified only as his girlfriend in the valet parking area outside the arena, said Officer Bill Cassell, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

“Some of our guys observed a domestic dispute between him and his girlfriend,” Cassell said. “It was a physical confrontation.”

Albrecht, who is divorced and has two children, was arrested at the scene and held on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic assault at the Clark County Detention Center shortly before 6 a.m. and released shortly after 3 p.m., Cassell said.

The police department had, at the casino’s expense, assigned 100 officers to secure the event. The boxing match drew a crowd of 16,200 to the arena, including a contingent of HBO executives in ringside seats that sell for $2,000 each.

An HBO spokeswoman in Los Angeles declined to comment. Albrecht, 54, spent much of his career in creative positions at HBO before taking the helm five years ago.

He is credited with overseeing the development of some of the entertainment company’s biggest hits, including edgy, grown-up fare such as “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

He began at HBO in 1985 as senior vice president of original programming for the West Coast. In 1990 he was named president of HBO Independent Productions, the unit that developed “Everybody Loves Raymond,” the CBS hit that recently ended a nine-year run.

In 1995, he was named president of HBO original programming and in 2002 he took over the operations of the New York-based company as chairman and CEO.

Even though HBO’s operational base is in New York, Albrecht kept his home in Los Angeles, the company’s creative hub. Albrecht kept his hand in the creative side as well, alternating his weeks between offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Including Cinemax, HBO has 40 million subscribers.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Lance Pugmire contributed to this report.