UCLA Is Cleared After FBI Probe

Four UCLA football players questioned by the FBI knew the man called Donny Shacks was a reputed mobster but so revered his friendship he was “almost like a father or grandfather to us,” one of the players said Thursday.

All four, formally cleared Thursday of wrongdoing by the FBI, knew that Dominic Montemarano, 60, had both a reputation and a criminal past--a conviction in 1987 for racketeering.

But, said the player, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “We never thought of him as anything but our friend,” a guy who, for instance, invited them to his Century City house for “Monday Night Football” parties.

“And he still is.”

The player offered his remarks on the same day the FBI confirmed it had investigated UCLA’s football team after learning of allegations of point shaving but cleared Bruin football players and the university of wrongdoing because agents found “no corroborating information.”

Timothy P. McNally, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said no further investigation of players, the team and UCLA will be conducted “unless additional information comes to the attention of the FBI.”

At an on-campus news conference Thursday, UCLA football Coach Bob Toledo said he had been confident all along the players would be exonerated. He conceded, however, that media reports of the FBI probe that flashed across the country Thursday had given UCLA a “black eye.”

The FBI issued its statement after interviewing several UCLA football players over the last three weeks, among them Cade McNown, last season’s starting quarterback. Aside from McNown, the identities of the three others have not been made public.

McNown issued a statement Wednesday that said he had voluntarily taken a lie-detector test, passed and then been assured there would be “no further inquiry.”

“I think this thing is complete B.S. and caused headaches that had no reason to occur,” one of the others said Thursday in an interview with The Times. He added: “Nobody did anything wrong. Ever.”

He said he talked to the FBI--for 90 minutes--without an attorney: “I went and answered some questions. I didn’t have anything to hide. It wasn’t even a scary experience.”

The FBI statement did not explain the source or nature of the point shaving allegations. The Bruins rolled past their first 10 opponents, won the Pacific 10 Conference championship, then lost on Dec. 5 at Miami, 49-45. Playing on New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl, they lost again, to Wisconsin, 38-31.

“The FBI was not too interested in point shaving,” the player said Thursday.

“They asked me if it came up. The answer was no. I mean, we averaged 40 points a game. How were we doing anything but kicking people’s butts?”

What agents wanted to know about, he said, was Montemarano--who has been seen and photographed in recent months in the company of UCLA football players.

Even though UCLA has been cleared, a source said an FBI investigation of Montemarano is still ongoing.

New details emerged Thursday about Montemarano, identified in the mid-1980s in court documents as a captain in New York’s Colombo crime family, that underscored his still unexplained interest last season in the Bruin football program.

For instance, Montemarano attended the football team’s awards banquet Dec. 9.

The event is open to the public and Montemarano bought a ticket, said Marc Dellins, UCLA’s director of athletic-media relations.

In addition, there were the “Monday Night Football” viewing parties at Montemarano’s home--which the handful of UCLA players attended several times.

Asked at the news conference what would entice college football players to watch a football game at the house of a convicted felon and reputed mobster from New York, a man nearly three times their age, Toledo replied, “I have no idea. I really don’t.”

The player explained: “It was just as if I had everyone over here on Monday night. Go and have good company, have a good time. People do that all over the country every day--have friends over. ‘Monday Night Football’ is an excuse to go have a good time.”

He added: “There were tons of people there. It just happened to be that there were one to five football players among 40 people. . . . You had people in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. It was just a big party.”

Asked how they first were introduced to Montemarano, the player replied, “A friend of a friend.” He declined to be more specific.

Where? “Just around.”

What did they understand he did for a living? “Happily retired.”

How did he come by money? “He’s an intelligent man.”

Montemarano was convicted in federal court in New York in 1987 of racketeering charges. According to press accounts, the case stemmed from an extensive Mafia extortion scheme to obtain cash payments from concrete companies, which then would get major construction projects in New York City.

In October 1987, he was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. At the time, he was battling cancer and kidney problems.

He bounced around the federal prison system, finally landing in 1993 at a prison in Loretto, Pa. He stayed there until July 1996, when he was transferred to a facility in Long Beach.

He was released from federal custody on Sept. 27, 1996, according to Daniel R. Dunne, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Montemarano was released under a program that allowed certain inmates to get out after serving two-thirds of their sentences--which in his case would have been April 1998. He got out earlier because of good-time credits, Dunne said.

His parole agent declined Thursday to comment.

The UCLA players he befriended knew of his background. But they were not concerned.

Said the player: “It was none of our business what he did. You can’t go around life worrying about what someone has done in the past.”

He added a few moments later: “A guy serves time and gets out. Isn’t he supposedly a clean man now? If that’s the case, he should be a citizen right then as far as I’m concerned. If jails don’t work, then why have them?”