State Says It Will Audit Forum Boxing’s Books : Investigation: Assistant matchmaker suspended after story of alleged kickbacks.

A California Athletic Commission official said Friday that a state audit of Forum boxing financial records will be held in the wake of a Times story about an alleged cash-kickback operation.

“We are absolutely going to look at Forum (financial) records,” said Richard DeCuir, new chief executive officer for the commission in Sacramento.

“We’re in contact with the Department of Consumer Affairs, and we’re in the process of deciding which state agency is the appropriate one to look at their records. We want to review our in-house Forum records and theirs, too.”

Numerous boxing managers, trainers and boxers said in the story that they had to kick back expense money to assistant matchmaker Merlin Petit to get bouts for their fighters on Forum cards.

Forum boxing announced Friday through spokesman John Beyrooty that Petit had been suspended.

“We’re planning on sending a letter to the athletic commission, stating that we are temporarily suspending Merlin Petit until such time as John Jackson returns and we can complete an in-house investigation,” Beyrooty said.

Jackson, president of Forum boxing, is in Virginia attending to the estate of his father.

Steve English, the commission’s assistant executive officer in charge of the Los Angeles office, said he had warned the Forum “twice in the last four months” about expense checks.

“We told them we didn’t want to see checks going out that were not accounted for on the pay sheets or on the fight contracts,” he said.

Forum owner Jerry Buss was unavailable for comment.

Raoul Silva, an athletic commission member from 1985 until this year, said Friday that the commission was aware of Petit’s alleged activities in recent years but lacked funds to investigate him.

“We knew what he was up to, and the assistant executive officer at the time, Don Muse, knew what he was up to,” Silva said. “But we would have had to pay Department of Consumer Affairs investigators to investigate him, and we didn’t have the funds. Also, we would have had to have a formal complaint on him, and we never did while I was on the commission.”

The continuing pattern of kickbacks allegedly paid to Petit throws into question all Forum boxing checks written for “expenses” in recent years.

Under new scrutiny are two Forum expense checks, for $212,000 and $250,000. Both were written to Thomas Hearns for his fight with Kemper Morton at the Forum last Feb. 11 and for his fight against Virgil Hill, a Forum promotion, June 3 at Las Vegas.

Hearns lives in Los Angeles. Why would he need $212,000 for training expenses for a fight in Inglewood?

“Nothing illegal happened,” said Harold Smith, Hearns’ adviser. “The big expense check was actually part of his purse. He paid taxes on it. The same happened for the Hill fight.”

Hearns’ purse for the Morton fight was $50,000. He announced beforehand that he was donating all of it to the USO. The USO said it received $50,000 from Hearns.

Hearns’ purse for the Hill fight was $3,875,000, and he also received, in advance, a training expenses check from the Forum for $250,000. Hill, whose purse was $1,350,000, also received a $250,000 advance expenses check.

In another development, it’s something of a mystery as to who paid Meldrick Taylor and Brian Mitchell at a Sacramento pay-per-view show last Sept. 13.

Taylor, a welterweight, is one of boxing’s marquee fighters, commanding six-digit purses. He earned $1 million for his 1990 fight with Julio Cesar Chavez.

However, for his Sacramento match with Ernie Chavez, fight contracts show his purse as $1,000. And Mitchell, a world-class junior-lightweight from South Africa who fought Tony Lopez, also was shown as receiving a $1,000 purse.

The promoter was Don Chargin of Los Angeles.

“I didn’t pay them anything,” he said. “The Duvas (the Duva family, which owns Taylor’s promotion company, Main Events) came to me and wanted him on my show. So, since I was getting (Taylor) for nothing, I agreed.

“TVKO (HBO’s pay-per-view network, which televised the show), paid Taylor.”

But TVKO spokesman Bernie Dillon said that the Duvas, not TVKO, paid Taylor.

The Duvas did not return calls.

“Mitchell was paid in South Africa,” Chargin said. “I have no idea what his purse was, but I imagine it was $250,000 or $300,000.”