Boxing Champ Faces Charges of Stealing Statue From Gallery

A middleweight boxing champion faces charges that he stole a $2,500 bronze statue from a Sherman Oaks art gallery and then threatened the shop’s owner not to testify, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

Frank Liles, 28, of Sherman Oaks is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Van Nuys Municipal Court on charges of grand theft and witness intimidation, police said.

Liles, the North American Boxing Assn. super-middleweight champion, is accused of breaking into the Orlando Gallery at 14553 Ventura Blvd. on Feb. 16 and stealing a foot-tall statue of a nude woman.

A left-hander, Liles has a 22-1 record with 15 knockouts. In recent years, he has been based at the Ten Goose Gym in Van Nuys. Before that he was based in Detroit. His only loss came in July to Tim Littles of Flint, Mich.

In the boxing community, Liles is regarded as a clean-cut, clean-living, hard-working fighter. Liles once studied architecture at Syracuse University in New York state and has said that he hopes to go into business after his boxing career ends.

“He’s a good kid. He wouldn’t get involved in something like this,” said John Davimos, Liles’ co-manager. “Of all the people I work with, he is the last person I think would be accused of something like this. I don’t think he did it. He told me they have the wrong guy and I believe him.”

A security guard saw the burglar leaving the gallery with the statue just before 2 a.m., police said. He saw the burglar place the statue in a gold Mercedes-Benz. The gallery’s glass front door had been broken, police said.

“The security guard was driving by, saw the crime,” Deputy Dist. Atty. James A. Baker said. “He made a U-turn, got a description of the guy, a description of the car and the car’s license number.”

The guard followed the Mercedes for several blocks but lost it when the burglar sped away, Baker said.

The guard reported the incident to police. About an hour later the guard spotted the same vehicle at a coffee shop at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards and called for help, police said.

Liles was arrested when he left the coffee shop and entered his car, Baker said.

“He had changed his clothing,” after the burglary, Baker said. “They found his other clothes in the trunk of the gold Mercedes.” The statue was not found in the car.

After the arrest, the owner told police he remembered someone matching Liles’ description coming into the gallery and asking about the statue’s price, Baker said.

The witness-intimidation charge stems from a phone call the boxer allegedly made to the gallery’s owner later that day, after Liles was released from police custody, Baker said. The caller made threats and promised to return the statue if charges were dropped.

“He didn’t specifically identify himself, but he threatened the owner, saying that if you don’t drop charges something would happen. He said he would return the statue and expected that the charges would then be dropped.”

The statue was found in an alley behind the store the next day, Baker said.

If convicted of both charges, Liles faces four years and eight months in state prison.