Mexico Charges Boxer Chavez With Tax Fraud

After a yearlong investigation, Mexican Treasury Department officials Monday charged boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, this nation’s top sports idol, with committing more than $1 million in tax fraud.

Chavez, a former world champion who also is much revered in the Latino community in Southern California, has called the probe a “public lynching” and a “conspiracy.” In full-page newspaper ads, he previously had proclaimed his innocence of any wrongdoing and appealed to President Ernesto Zedillo to clear his name.

But after reviewing the criminal complaint against him, a judge in the boxer’s home state of Sinaloa issued an arrest warrant Monday for Chavez, whose whereabouts could not immediately be determined.

The government asserts that he and two business partners, Daniel Viesca Monsivais and Jaime Vicente Garate, submitted $1.4 million in fraudulent sales-tax claims to the government in 1993 through their company Gonzalez Carrasco--one of many investments the boxer has in Mexico, including “J.C.” gas stations, a restaurant and real estate.

Chavez is the latest in a series of prominent individuals to be implicated by the government as part of Zedillo’s campaign to convince Mexicans that he is building an independent judicial system in which no one--even the high and mighty--is above the law.

Chavez also is the latest in a growing number of international athletes--including German tennis star Steffi Graf--who now are paid such staggering sums that public attention no longer focuses solely on their physical prowess but their often tangled finances as well.

Graf’s father, Peter, is scheduled to go on trial in a German court Thursday on tax-fraud charges related to his handling of his daughter’s multimillion-dollar winnings. Similar charges have hounded U.S. baseball stars Darryl Strawberry and Pete Rose and legendary British jockey Lester Piggott.

But in Mexico, where Chavez is a hero and household name for millions of sports enthusiasts, Monday’s arrest order was seen as the latest in a series of blows to the former super lightweight boxing champion.

Chavez lost the crown he had held for seven years on June 7, when challenger Oscar De La Hoya of Whittier left him bleeding and beaten in the fourth round of a Las Vegas pay-for-view fight that was watched by millions in California and Mexico.

Chavez had won 97 of his 99 previous bouts--one was a draw--and boxing experts had considered him, pound for pound, one of the best lightweight fighters in history.

But in the weeks before the June fight, the champion was dogged by the Mexican government’s tax investigation. His sparring partner was shot to death near Mexico City in a gangland slaying that local prosecutors said was linked to Mexico’s illicit drug trade. And after the fight, he was publicly stung by a lawsuit his wife filed alleging domestic violence.

For the first time ever, Chavez was an underdog in the De La Hoya match, for which he earned $9 million. The headlines here in the Mexican capital the following day best described his debacle, calling the bout “J.C.’s nightmare.”

After he returned to Mexico in defeat, the Mexico City daily El Financiero added to the pain: It alleged that the former champion was linked to Mexico’s powerful drug-trafficking cartels--a report that Chavez said prompted him to take out the full-page ads, which threatened to sue the newspaper for libel.

“I am the victim of a conspiracy,” he declared in the ads, addressed to Zedillo, Mexico’s reform-minded president. “The people I trusted--friends, compadres--have betrayed me. . . . For more than 14 years, I have lived between gyms, training centers and boxing arenas. I am no saint. I am human. I have my mistakes and my defeats. But in my name, I have never killed, I have never robbed, I have never been a criminal. . . . If you accuse me, prove it.”

Monday’s charges against Chavez follow last year’s arrest of the elder brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Raul Salinas de Gortari is in jail charged with illegal enrichment while a senior government official. He is now on trial for allegedly masterminding the 1994 murder of a top ruling party official. Other prominent Mexicans, including the former treasurer of the nation’s Social Security Institute, also have been charged with corruption under Zedillo’s anti-graft campaign. Several present and former governors are under investigation for alleged corruption.

The Treasury Department’s crackdown on tax fraud has netted almost $400 million in fines and back taxes just between January and May of this year, a spokesman said.

It was unclear just how the criminal charges and arrest warrant might affect the boxing future of Chavez, who had previously said he would not talk to the media as he prepared for his scheduled fight with Joey Gamache on Oct. 12 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

But the charges and the cloud of suspicion that has followed him for several months already appeared to be tarnishing his image at home.

Mexican boxing expert Jorge Aguilera, who has covered Chavez’s career for Monterrey’s El Norte newspaper, said the former champion has been “an example to follow” for millions of Mexican children.

“He was even well received at Los Pinos under Salinas,” Aguilera said of the boxer’s many visits to Mexico’s presidential residence during the previous administration.