HIV-positive boxer falsified test results submitted to Arkansas Athletic Commission
Nov 29, 2017
The Arkansas State Athletic Commission allowed an HIV-positive boxer to fight on a Nov. 11 card -- going against federal law and a warning about his status from the national Association of Boxing Commissions -- because it accepted falsified test results the fighter gave the commission, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Health told ESPN on Tuesday.
"Since ADH sent [ESPN] a statement [on Monday about the incident], we have learned that the HIV test results submitted to the Arkansas Athletic Commission were falsified," Meg Mirivel, the public information officer for the ADH, told ESPN.
The ADH is involved in overseeing medical exams for boxers and MMA fighters in the state.
"The investigation into this issue is ongoing," Mirivel said. "The ADH is beginning to contact and provide follow-up testing to anyone in contact with the fighter. In addition, we will be working with the Arkansas Athletic Commission to change regulations to require bloodwork for every fighter in Arkansas going forward."
The boxer, whose name has not been made public due to medical privacy laws, fought on a low-level, four-bout card before 102 people at the Boys & Girls Club in Camden, Arkansas, even though he was on the national suspension registry kept by Fight Fax.
Arkansas does not require blood testing for combat sports participants as part of medical exams needed to obtain a license in the state. But it is federal law that commissions check the Fight Fax suspension list before issuing a license to a boxer. If a fighter is on the suspension list, only the state issuing the suspension is allowed to remove it. The HIV-positive boxer is on the suspension list in Florida, according to his Fight Fax record, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN. But even if the test results that the boxer gave to the Arkansas commission were authentic and he was HIV negative, Arkansas still broke federal law because he still was suspended in Florida.
The fighter had been scheduled to box on a July card in Florida, the matchmaker who made the fight told ESPN, requesting that his name not be used to protect his business interests. As part of the licensing process, the matchmaker sent the fighter for a blood test as is required in Florida. He said it came back HIV positive.
"I went ahead and retested him again to make sure that the test wasn't a false positive," the matchmaker said. "And the test came back positive the second time. The kid was in denial, and he had made a statement that he would fight in Arkansas because of their lax medical requirements. Because of the fighter's statement, I felt what he was going to attempt to do, with knowledge, [was] a criminal act. Therefore, I notified Frank Gentile with the Florida commission about the fighter's lab results.
"The kid has been taking medications since then, so it is plausible that if he got tested [in Arkansas] the result could come back negative due to him taking the medication, which suppresses the virus."
Apparently, the fighter followed through on his statement to the Florida matchmaker and went to Arkansas to fight. After the ABC warned Arkansas regulators about the fighter, the ADH asked for test results from the fighters on the card before allowing them to fight.
On Monday, Robert Brech, the general counsel for the ADH, told ESPN that the commission "asked for and acquired bloodwork prior to the fight for all fighters on the card that evening. All fighters provided test results that indicated all tested negative for HIV."
As it turned out, according to Mirivel, the commission did not test the fighters itself, nor did a lab associated with the commission. Instead, the commission relied on each boxer on the card to provide his own test results.
On Monday, ABC president Mike Mazzulli told ESPN he had called Arkansas officials to warn them that an HIV-positive boxer was scheduled to fight on the card and also that the fighter was on suspension in Florida. But the boxer was allowed to fight after providing his own test results.
Mirivel said that after
ESPN's story ran Monday afternoon, the ADH reviewed the test results given to the commission. She said it was apparent upon review that the test results were fashioned from two different results -- an older negative test result on the same paper with a more recent date, "and they made it look like a current [negative] result." She added, "We were informed [by Mazzulli] that there might be a potentially HIV-positive fighter on the card, so we asked for test results from all the boxers. It's not something in the commission rules and regulations. They provided us with their own results. We're trying to make sure that doesn't happen again. We are definitely looking into how to prevent that."
According to attorney Patrick English, who has decades of experience in boxing and has dealt with falsified test results, if the fighter "forged the test, which is possible, then he is chargeable with forgery, and in Arkansas that is a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine."
"If he had somebody else take the test for him, then that wouldn't apply, but it would be obstruction of governmental functions, which is also a punishable by up to 10 years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine," English said.
Arkansas also broke federal law by not reporting the results of the card within 48 hours to Fight Fax. Instead, they were not submitted until Monday of this week.
On Nov. 22, Mazzulli, following up on the ABC's concerns, sent Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson a letter about the situation that was also copied to various Arkansas government officials and the board of directors of the ABC. He pointed out that Arkansas had broken federal law and called Arkansas' failure to check the federal suspension list "a direct violation of federal law and an egregious disregard for health and safety standards."
