Tragedy Continues to Haunt Aquino : Boxer: Former champion faces sentencing on manslaughter charge stemming from accident in which two people died.

Anywhere, any time, the memory of Aug. 14, 1988, is likely to throw a stiff jab to Lupe Aquino’s face.

Sometimes, just driving past a wreck on the freeway starts his mind racing.

Although he has dealt with his most recent ring opponent, Jerry Okorodudu, Aquino’s nightmare refuses to go away.

Okorodudu, a super-welterweight from Nigeria, ended up Thursday night as just the latest of Aquino’s foes to hit the canvas, suffering a fourth-round knockout at the El Cortez Convention Center in San Diego. Of Aquino’s 41 victories--against five losses and a tie--31 have been by knockout, including his last eight.

But Monday, Aquino, 26, will learn if his next fight will be held behind bars.

He will be sentenced for gross-vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol, a charge to which he has already pleaded no contest. The maximum sentence is 10 years, the minimum four.

“I really try not to think about it,” Aquino said. “I just pray to God that everything will come out OK.”

Life was more than OK for Aquino until that August night. He was the World Boxing Council’s super-welterweight champion and had million-dollar paydays awaiting.

That all changed at about 2:20 a.m. in the Sepulveda Pass on the San Diego Freeway. Aquino was driving home to Ventura from a rock concert. His passengers were Michelle Avila, his girlfriend; Howard Thomas, a Ventura disc jockey and one of Aquino’s best friends, and Teresa Bello, Thomas’ girlfriend.

Somehow, Aquino lost control of his Mercedes-Benz. It plunged about 40 feet down an embankment and landed upside down on Sepulveda Boulevard. Thomas and Bello were killed. Aquino suffered minor injuries, Avila more serious injuries.

According to Aquino, Avila, 26, grabbed the steering wheel and caused the car to leave the road.

“She knows she yanked that steering wheel, and the Lord knows she grabbed it,” Aquino said. “There was no way I could save that car.”

Avila, who is still living in Ventura, said in the police report and later in a preliminary hearing that she was looking down for something in her purse when the car went off the road. Avila said the last thing she recalled was the car going down the embankment.

Steve Pell, Avila’s lawyer, said Avila has filed a civil suit against Aquino, claiming that besides the injuries she suffered in the accident, she was battered by Aquino before they got in the car.

Pell said Avila is also claiming that Aquino is in contempt of court for failing to pay child-support for their 5-year-old son. She is refusing comment on the matter.

On Sept. 8 in Los Angeles Municipal Court, Aquino entered his no-contest plea in the manslaughter case.

“No matter how good a case I had, I was under the influence,” Aquino said. “Even if I won the case, there’s still a drunk-driving charge, and two people are dead.”

Joe Sayatovich, Aquino’s manager, maintains that Aquino is not guilty of anything except driving while under the influence of alcohol.

“He’s a good kid, and he got out of hand,” Sayatovich said. “He just got to hanging around all those yuppies. Lupe is not a criminal. He made a mistake. Two people are dead, and I agree somebody has to pay. There’s all kinds of things he could have done to prevent what happened.

“He’s probably going to be doing some time. I wouldn’t want to be the one deciding it.”

Judge David Perez of Los Angeles Superior Court will hand down Aquino’s sentence. Aquino said that even the minimum term will be too long.

“I realize the opportunity and the gift that I have,” Aquino said. “By me going to prison would be a waste of talent that I have. I’m paying for it. Everything I do, everywhere I go, I have flashes of that night.

“We all make mistakes. We’re not perfect. It’s just a dumb mistake on my part. Since the accident, it seems like I’ve already been in jail five years.”

Isaia Guadalupe Aquino was born in Tijuana and moved with his family to Santa Paula, 10 miles east of Ventura, when he was 5.

After a short amateur career, Aquino turned professional at 18. Within six years, Aquino had won the WBC 154-pound title with a unanimous 12-round decision over Duane Thomas in Bordeaux, France.

Not long afterward, he returned from France and went on a partying binge that lasted months.

“As soon as he won the championship, he went into a self-destruct mode,” Sayatovich said. “He partied and celebrated, which is fine, but eventually you have to go back to work.”

Reflecting on the past, Aquino admits that he was on the wrong track.

“When I won the title, it happened so quick,” Aquino said. “I attracted a lot of people. I wasn’t myself, going here and there for presentations. I never did much of my training. Me, being the nice guy, I couldn’t say no to anyone. My training always came last.

“It was a horrible feeling, because there was so much pressure on me. It was not the way I wanted it to be at all. Now that I’ve been through it, it would be a different story. I would devote myself to my training and change my life style.”

And his address.

Aquino said that his environment, more than anything else, caused his downfall.

“Perhaps, if I had been living in Campo, this might not have happened,” Aquino said.

Since the accident, Aquino has moved to Campo, on the Mexican border, where he trains. He has returned to Ventura only to see his parents.

“I feel like a better person here than I did there,” Aquino said. “I don’t want to go back to Ventura. Friends, the atmosphere, the accident. Being over here, I feel like a fighter. It’s my place to be.”

Three months after winning the title, Aquino lost it to Gianfranco Rossi. He lost again in January of 1988 to Donald Curry, a former world welterweight champion.

But when Aquino defeated Milton McCrory in April and knocked out previously unbeaten Royan Hammond in August, he appeared to be coming back.

Then the comeback was interrupted that horrifying night in August.

Four months later, Aquino fought for the World Boxing Organization’s junior-middleweight title against John David Jackson. He lasted just seven rounds before his trainer, Abel Sanchez, stopped the fight.

“Before the (Jackson) fight, I could see myself being on the canvas,” said Aquino, who has never been knocked off his feet. “And I never felt like that before. At that time, a lot of things were fresh. I was just there. I wasn’t doing anything.”

After that fight, Aquino was arrested at ringside for skipping a court appearance on the vehicular manslaughter charge.

But beginning with a first-round knockout of James Williams last April, Aquino began to re-establish himself as one of the super-welterweight division’s better boxers. Since then, Aquino has not had a fight that lasted four rounds, and in one of them he scored a second-round knockout of Pipino Cuevas, another former welterweight champion.

Sayatovich said Aquino’s skills have never been the problem.

“He devastates people when he fights--the same way Mike Tyson does,” Sayatovich said. “He overpowers everyone who has ever stepped in the ring with him. He’s unbeatable when he’s in shape.”

Sanchez, who said that Aquino trained for just two weeks for Jackson and Curry and three for Rossi, agreed that Aquino can be nearly invincible when he is mentally and physically prepared.

“He’s a puncher-boxer--a better boxer than a lot of people give him credit for,” said Sanchez, who has worked with Aquino for four years. “He hates to train, but he loves to fight.

“In Palm Springs, in November of ‘86, he chased (John) Mugabi out of the ring in two rounds. Mickey Duff (Mugabi’s trainer) stopped the sparring.”

These days, when Aquino isn’t training or thinking of that August night, he is counseling schoolchildren on the dangers of drinking and driving.

He is also donating 10% of his purses to the two children of Teresa Bello and attending anger-control workshops as part of a diversion program for avoiding a 1987 battery charge involving Avila.

Aquino said his outlook on life and boxing has changed drastically.

“I’m more dedicated than I ever was,” Aquino said. “I’m taking my career more seriously.”

Unfortunately, that change in attitude might have come too late.

“It’s too bad he didn’t have the mind discipline,” Sayatovich said. “He probably would have been worth $20 million by now.”

And he might not be haunted by a nightmare.