According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, the test results of the HIV-Positive fighter that competed in Arkansas on November 11th were falsified.
“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 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 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.
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“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.”
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.
