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The 10 Most Notorious Sporting Criminals
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Dan Fitch /
12 November 2008 /
2 Comments
Top level athletes are well paid, famous and get to do what they love for a living. Put simply, they seem to have it all.
Sometimes though, the adulation received makes the athlete think that they are above the law. The wrong choices are made and before they know it, all eyes are on them for the wrong reasons.
Here are the 10 most notorious sporting criminals.
10. Tonya Harding - Ice Skating
In 1991 Tonya Harding won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and finished second in the World Championships, but it was not until the notorious incidents of 1994 that she became a household name.
Following a practice session at the 1994 U.S. Championships, Harding's fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan was struck on the knee with a metal baton, by a mystery attacker. The culprit turned out to be Shane Stant, who had been hired by Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and friend, Shawn Eckardt.
Harding was punished with 3 years probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. However, the real punishment proved to be the way in which Harding's life spun out of control.
First at the 1994 Olympics, she finished a lowly eighth, as Kerrigan took the Silver medal. Then came an internet sex tape, a domestic violence assault charge after she threw a hubcap at her boyfriend and 10 days in jail for drunk driving. In between such antics, Harding managed to slot in a spell as a wrestling manager and a professional boxing career.
9. Darryl Strawberry - Baseball
It is the sheer number, rather than the severity of the crimes that gets Darryl Strawberry a place on this list.
The popular player, who was a World Series winner on four occasions, has led an even more colourful life off the field.
In his time Strawberry has been arrested for spousal abuse (multiple times; multiple spouses), indicted for failing to pay his taxes, arrested for attempting to solicit sex with a policewoman posing as a prostitute, arrested for driving away from a car accident after blacking out on painkillers and has been involved in a number of drug offences.
8. Michael Vick - Football
The last thing you want to do is to outrage a nation of animal lovers, as NFL star Michael Vick has proved. In 2007 he was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his part in operating a 6 year long dog fighting venture known as 'Bad Newz Kennels'.
Vick pled guilty to federal dog fighting charges, and was accused of financing the operation, directly participating in dog fights and executions, and handling thousands of dollars in related gambling activities. The fights took place on Vick's own 15 acre property.
As one of the biggest NFL stars, Vick held a number of endorsement deals, all of which have been left to expire. By 2008, Vick had filed for bankruptcy.
7. Mike Tyson - Boxing
By the age of 13, Mike Tyson had been arrested 38 times. The young Tyson honed his fighting skills by attacking those that mocked his high-pitched voice and lisp.
Tyson only got into real trouble with the law, after he had risen to fame. In 1991 he was due to face Evander Holyfield, as he attempted to regain his Heavyweight crown. But in July of that year Tyson was arrested for rape. He was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment, though was eventually released after 3.
6. Mike Danton - Hockey
Just days after The St Louis Blues were eliminated from the first round of the 2004 Stanley Cup play offs, the Blues centre Mike Danton was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
Danton pled guilty to attempting hire a hitman to murder his agent David Frost. Danton was sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison, having been defended by Howard Kieffer, who it later transpired was not licensed to practice law.
Danton has remained silent in regards to his motive. Frost was Danton's junior hockey coach and was said to have a controlling influence over the youngster. Danton became estranged from his family and in 2002 changed his surname from 'Jefferson' to 'Danton'. This followed an investigation over claims that Frost had been involved in an extreme hazing ritual, involving Mike's younger brother Tom Jefferson.
It is said that Frost's relationship with Danton has continued, even following his imprisonment. In 2006 Frost was charged with 12 counts of sexual exploitation, in relation to acts involving 3 females and 4 males aged between 14 to 16 years of age. Frost is currently free on bail, awaiting trial.
5. Don King - Boxing
Before Don King found fame as boxing's most outlandish promoter, he had been charged with killing 2 men in separate incidents.
In 1954 King shot and killed a man who was attempting to rob one of his gambling houses and was determined to be justifiable murder. 13 years later, King was found guilty of beating an employee to death who owed him $600. King served 4 years for non-negligent manslaughter.
Now a 'respectable' boxing promoter, King has been sued by (amongst others) Muhammad Ali, Tim Witherspoon, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and the insurance company Lloyds of London.
4. Ugueth Urbina - Baseball
The Venezuelan relief pitcher Ugueth Urbina was a 2 time All Star and won the 2003 World Series with the Florida Marlins.
In 2005 Urbina was arrested by Venezuelan police on a charge of attempted murder. Urbina and a group of men, attacked 5 farm workers on his property in a truly chilling manner.
Urbina and his gang came at the farm workers with machetes, before pouring gasoline on them and attempting to set them ablaze. Urbina was sentenced to 14 years for attempted murder.
3. Rae Carruth - Football
Rae Carruth was a first round draft pick in the 1997 NFL draft. He signed a 4 year deal with the Carolina Panthers and it looked as if a glittering career lay ahead for the young wide receiver.
Carruth never fulfilled his sporting potential, due to an act of sheer evil on his part. In November 1999 Carruth went to see a movie with Cherica Adams, a woman that he'd been dating. They left in separate cars and it was at this point that Carruth put his plan into effect. He stopped his car in front of Adams' vehicle, blocking her from making any exit. At this point another car pulled up alongside that of Adams and the passenger in the vehicle shot her 4 times.
Adams did not die instantly, giving her time to call the police and inform them of Carruth's part in the attack. She also explained that she was 7 months pregnant with Carruth's child. That fateful night was only their second date after Carruth had been informed that Adams was pregnant.
It transpired that Adams was actually carrying twins. Adams fell into a coma and died, as did one of the twins. Doctors managed to save the other twin, though was she born suffering from cerebral palsy. Carruth was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison, having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child.
2. Carlos Monzon - Boxing
The Argentine boxer Carlos Monzon held the world middleweight title for 7 years and lost just 3 times in 100 fights.
The ring wasn't the only place where he liked to throw punches. Monzon was accused of domestic violence by his 2 wives and many mistresses and in 1973 was shot in the leg by his first wife, requiring 7 hours of surgery.
In 1988 Monzon allegedly beat his second wife Alicia Muniz, causing her to flee to the balcony of their second floor apartment. Monzon followed her up and grabbed her by the neck, before throwing her off the balcony to her death.
Monzon was sentenced to 11 years in jail in 1989, but died in a car crash during a weekend release in 1995.
1. O.J. Simpson - Football
O.J. Simpson is the most infamous sporting criminal of all. The NFL hall of fame member and star of the Naked Gun series was acquitted of the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, but was held liable for their deaths in a later civil trial. O.J. was ordered to pay $33,500,000 in damages.
In 2007 O.J. wrote a book entitled If I Did It in which he gave a 'hypothetical' account of how he would have murdered his victims. After a court battle it was eventually published with proceeds going to the Goldman family.
13 years to the day that Simpson was acquitted of double homicide, a jury convicted him of armed robbery and kidnapping charges. Simpson and 5 men raided a hotel room in Las Vegas and took memorabilia that Simpson claimed had been stolen from him. Simpson will be sentenced in December 2008. He faces life imprisonment. Better late than never.
Fred | 26 November 2008
Strange Journey of Howard Kieffer
In 2006, Howard Kieffer represented a professional hockey player convicted of trying to kill his agent. He also defended a phony preacher who ran a fraud empire out of his Atlanta prison cell. In 2007, Kieffer was hired to represent a Colorado woman charged in a high-profile murder-for-hire case. That same year, he testified in a case of an accused terrorist in Miami.
When a federal prosecutor discovered Kieffer wasn't an attorney in 2006, the ruse was never exposed.
These are just a few chapters in the 53-year-old Kieffer's strange but true life.
Court records, news reports and interviews with people he duped reveal that before he was arrested at his Duluth home last month on federal charges of mail fraud and making false statements, Kieffer already had a lengthy criminal record, including a conviction for scamming the Internal Revenue Service; was often in the spotlight for major cases; and even was a Democratic Party delegate and campaign aide for a U.S. congresswoman in California.
Yet he was always one step ahead of a system that seemingly had no interest in catching him.
During his "career," court records and archived news stories show that Kieffer was able to defend numerous high-profile cases, make thousands of dollars and buy high-priced homes and cars while never raising the suspicion of the real lawyers he practiced with, seemingly because he was knowledgeable on the law.
An unusual history
Among the many strange twists his life has taken, according to news reports and court records:
* In 1976, he was found guilty of possessing more than $48,000 in stolen checks, a conviction set aside because he was only 20.
* In 1983, he was convicted of grand theft. According to the Los Angeles Times, he illegally deeded himself a home that he used as collateral for a loan. "When the loan was foreclosed," the paper reported, "the actual owner, a widow, was forced to give up the home to pay for it, authorities said."
* Between 1985 and 1989, he violated his probation by using a former employer's credit card to buy furniture. "It is apparent [Kieffer] is criminally oriented and will continue his criminal acts," his probation officer is quoted in the Orange County Weekly as saying.
* In 1989, at age 33, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison by a federal court for filing fake tax returns in what was called "one of the largest tax scams ever uncovered in Southern California." For five years, according to the Los Angeles Times, Kieffer filled in W-2 forms with bogus salaries drawn from fake companies, demanding refunds for the excess withdrawals he claimed. In total, he stole $212,000 from the IRS before it caught him through a tip.
* That same year, upset by the charges and his previous convictions, the Democratic Party of Orange County tried to oust him from its board.
* In 1991, imprisoned at Sandstone, Minn., Kieffer filed a complaint against a warden and represented himself in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
* By 1992, he was out of prison. By 1997, he had formed a Santa Ana, Calif.-based business called District Counsel, which at the time was listed as a debt collection company but now is listed as a law firm and uses the same e-mail address as Kieffer's other "law firm," Federal Defense Associates. An incorporation record listed his wife, Leanne, as the company's president. Both were named in a 1999 breach of contract suit against District Counsel, according to Orange County Superior Court records.
* In the mid 1990s, Kieffer became one of the biggest leaders and donors of the Orange County Democratic Party and played a leading role in the campaign of Loretta Sanchez, who won election and has served in Congress since 1996.
Other Sanchez backers at the time urged her to drop the known felon from her campaign, but Sanchez was quoted by the OC Weekly saying they would remain "close friends."
"What am I supposed to do -- shun him?" she asked in an interview,
Sanchez's office declined comment for this article, saying only that Kieffer was just a volunteer for her campaign.
* In 2003, Kieffer and his wife were taken to court by the city of Santa Ana for refusing to do anything about the barking of their two springer spaniels. It was a case, Kieffer was quoted as saying, "that showed the lack of supervision and accountability in the city attorney's office." After several days of testimony, a jury found the Kieffers guilty, a decision that was reversed by the judge, who said the ordinance was unconstitutional. A smiling Kieffer posed with one of the offending dogs for a photo that ran in the Los Angeles Times.
* In early 2006, Kieffer represented Wayne Milton, a fake preacher who sneaked out of federal prison camp at night to further his mortgage fraud schemes. Milton was convicted on charges of escape from federal prison, conspiracy to commit mortgage and grant fraud, and aggravated assault on a deputy U.S. marshal, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
* In mid-2006, Kieffer represented St. Louis Blues hockey player Mike Danton in an unsuccessful appeal of his sentence for plotting to have his agent killed.
* In September 2006, William Siler, an assistant U.S. attorney in Tennessee, discovered that though Kieffer claimed to be admitted to practice law in California, a simple phone call and letter from a clerk for the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that wasn't true.
Siler forwarded his findings to the Tennessee Attorney General's office, which apparently never followed up with an investigation. The office did not return a News Tribune phone call seeking comment.
"There wasn't much they could do with the case," Siler said. "It wasn't like he was practicing in Tennessee."
* Sometime in 2006, Kieffer, his wife and their daughter moved into a home near the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. It's not known why they chose Duluth.
* By 2008, Kieffer was known as one of the foremost experts on federal prisons and sentencing appeals, representing at least 16 different clients in 10 jurisdictions and boasting several high-profile cases. He even testified in the Miami case of Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a co-defendant of convicted terrorist abettor Jose Padilla.
Under questioning in that case on June 5, according to court records, Kieffer said he earned a degree from Antioch School of Law and that he was licensed to practice in North Dakota and California. However, he admitted in a letter to the U.S. District Court of North Dakota on June 30 that he was not a graduate of an accredited law school and not a bar member of any legal jurisdiction. That letter caused him to be disbarred.
Kieffer, who pleaded not guilty to the federal charges last week in Bismarck, N.D., did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Blending in with the crowd
So how did he convince other attorneys that he was a lawyer? By intermingling with them and sounding remarkably like one.
"He knows what he's talking about," said Bruce Houdek, a Kansas City, Mo.-based defense attorney whom Kieffer fooled.
Houdek said he first met Kieffer at a training seminar for federal defense attorneys, where he said Kieffer often gave sound legal advice and spoke so much that Houdek thought he was a featured speaker. The group sponsoring the seminars denies that.
Kieffer later asked Houdek to help him gain access to practice in a Missouri court through a "pro hac vice" motion, in which Houdek essentially vouched that Kieffer was a lawyer in good standing with the federal courts.
Because of his experience at the seminars, Houdek said he never thought to question Kieffer's credentials.
"He's very competent in his area," he said. "He seemed like an expert."
That was the impression Kieffer gave Neal Atway, an Ohio attorney who first met Kieffer about four years ago at a training seminar.
"He seemed like a very intelligent lawyer," he said. "The guy knew a lot of things that us lawyers didn't know.
"He actually gave me some ideas on some cases in legal arguments that I thought, 'Wow, that's pretty intelligent. I never thought about that,' " he said. "I found out afterward that the reason he knew about an area is that he was convicted under an act that he mentioned to me."
Atway said Kieffer conned him into consulting on two cases. On the first, Kieffer gained Atway's trust by helping him get a client transferred to a prison closer to his home in Arizona.
After that, Atway had a client who wanted him to call Kieffer for help to get the client's sentence reduced. Atway said Kieffer ended up bungling the case.Atway still is upset about being duped.
"If I see that guy again," Atway said, "I'm going to kill him."
Atway said his court district requires all federal defense attorneys to attend at least one training seminar a year. While those seminars are only open to federal defense attorneys, they appear to be where Kieffer met many attorneys who were later duped.
"Howard Kieffer regularly attended these seminars," Atway said. "Whenever I think back to the ones I've attended, he was at just about all of them. I would talk with attorneys who were at other seminars and said he was there. He must have been at all of them."
Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the federal defenders training branch, which sponsors the seminars, said it appeared that Kieffer falsified information to attend entry into the seminars.
"The standards are nowhere near as stringent for practicing in court," Carelli said.
He said that in March 2008 seminar sponsors learned Kieffer wasn't a federal defense attorney and even had questions that Kieffer was an attorney at all. He was confronted at a Chicago seminar and told to leave and not come to future events.
But Carelli said law enforcement was never notified.
Why?
"I don't think I could supply an answer that would satisfy you," he said. "We'll just leave it at that."
fisharegood | 23 February 2009
Attila Ambrus -- whiskey robber. Look for the upcoming movie. Romanian-Hungarian Hockey player given to robbing banks/post offices etc...