Commission rules against Gilbert

BY MIKE HOUSER
Appeal Sports Writer
LAS VEGAS — The Nevada State Athletic Commission unanimously rejected an agreed settlement of disciplinary action and order between Reno middleweight Joey Gilbert and deputy attorney general Christopher Eccles in an in-person agenda hearing Saturday at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building.
Rather than support the stipulated agreement between Eccles and the 31-year-old Gilbert, the five-member panel, consisting of chairman John R. Bailey and commissioners Raymond “Skip” Avansino, Bill D. Brady, T.J. Day and Pat Lundvall, elected to proceed to a full evidentiary hearing in the future.
Gilbert, 16-1 with 12 knockouts, has been serving a temporary suspension retroactive to Sept. 21, when he scored a one-round technical knockout of Charles Howe, of Grelton, Ohio, at the Grand Sierra Resort.
In pre- and post-fight urinalyses, Gilbert, a former three-time national champion for the University of Nevada club boxing team, originally tested positive for six banned substances, including methamphetamine, amphetamine, the steroid Stanozolol metabolite, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam.
After his B sample tested negative for methamphetamine in a test conducted by the Center for Human Toxicology at the University of Utah in December, the commission and the attorney general’s office dropped its pursuit of that charge, but subsequently pursued charges on the other five.
Gilbert and his current attorney and former law partner Mark Schopper, of Reno, were able to negotiate what amounted to a plea bargain agreement with Eccles. Gilbert admitted to unknowingly ingesting Stanozolol metabolite — he said he took 72 supplements leading up to the fight with Howe and that one of them likely caused the positive test — and Eccles said the other four drugs were prescribed by a physician. Eccles said Gilbert took Valium, which breaks down into nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam.
Gilbert also tested positive for amphetamine, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam following his 10-round stoppage of Juan Astorga May 12 at Reno Events Center and was subsequently warned in a letter by former commission chairman Dr. Tony Alamo not to take the drugs “before or during a fight.”
Keith Kizer, executive director for the NSAC, said he sent Gilbert a letter informing him that he had failed to list the banned substances before his fight with Astorga. In January, Kizer rendered moot a motion by Gilbert to remove him from further involvement in the matter by saying his role was complete.
Eccles also said his office didn’t recommend a fine for Gilbert, whom he indicated took a financial loss as the promoter for the Sept. 21 card, and that his eight-month suspension was sufficient punishment. He also said there were problematic issues for both sides, including the fact that Gilbert was cleared by commission doctors to fight Howe after he wrote down a list of drugs he had taken up to one month before that bout. There was also the matter of Gilbert’s understanding of what the words “before a fight” had meant when he consulted his prescribing physicians on when he could safely take the drugs and not test positive.
Nevertheless, the commission said they weren’t bound by the agreement, preferring instead to move on to an evidentiary hearing, something that Gilbert, who turns 32 in June, took as a major setback. Not only is he suspended indefinitely, his promoter’s license has not been reactivated for 2008.
“Disappointed is an understatement,” Gilbert said of his feelings on the commission’s decision. “As a fighter, as we indicated in there, if you take too many backward steps, it’s over. I’ve been training now well over three months, trying to stay as sharp as I can in the hopes that this was going to end — I thought — in a fair manner. I mean, it’s been nine months (actually just over eight). It is what it is.
“I also do understand where some of the commissioners are coming from because it’s my integrity at stake as much as it is the commission’s and I respect that. I believe it’s in God’s hands. I believe He has plans for me and I just have to stay sharp and keep my head up and keep training.”
Wearing a dark blue suit, Gilbert looked to be at or near his fighting weight, saying he has remained in training and tries to stay in shape year-round. He said this incident has drained him emotionally and financially. Once ranked as high as No. 4 by the WBO, Gilbert, who rose to international prominence on the NBC reality boxing show “The Contender,” has been stripped of his WBO-affiliated North American Boxing Organization (NABO) and WBC-affiliated United States National Boxing Championship belts and has fallen out of the rankings in all four major sanctioning bodies.
“I’ve been off nine months now. All the momentum’s gone,” Gilbert said. “We’ve lost a minimum of four to five fights, at the moment I’m not promoting...up to this date, I’ve spent over $25,000 now between toxicologists and witnesses and lab testing. And that doesn’t even count attorney’s fees, which we’re racking up — I don’t even want to go there. Let’s just say the next couple of fights are going to be (in essence) for free.
“Like I said, it’s just disheartening because all I tried to do during the physical process on Sept. 20 was to be as honest as I could. I’m the guy that listed everything. Every day I wonder why I even opened my mouth. I shouldn’t have put those things down. That’s what sparked things. I mean, how else do you get (the commission) to show up in your dressing room before the fight with a document to sign. I did this to myself, so for whatever reason, something bigger than myself this happened and there’s a reason this happened and we don’t know what it is.”
Gilbert, who has consistently said he has never knowingly ingested any illegal substance, accepted full responsibility for having the steroid in his system. He has also presented to the commission and attorney general’s office a polygraph test that indicated he was telling the truth when he said he had not knowingly ingested illegal substances. In addition, he had a hair test performed, which also tested negative for methamphetamine.
But none of this testimony swayed the commission. During the hearing, Day expressed concern about the proposed lack of a fine.
“I’m not happy about rolling over and changing rules,” Day said, referring to the fact that fighters who have admitted to testing positive for a steroid have invariably been fined.
Lundvall brought up the matter of integrity and honor.
“The way that I look at it is from both sides,” Lundvall said after the hearing. “Both Gilbert’s honor and integrity and the commission’s honor and integrity will be protected by a full evidentiary hearing. That way the light of day shines on the entire process and there will be a decision at the end if it, rather than some kind of negotiated deal.”
Brady said during the hearing that he didn’t like the idea of a plea agreement and didn’t want to establish a precedent for fighters to enter into them in the future.
All five of the commissioners agreed that a fine should be imposed and that a full evidentiary hearing would be the best approach.
Schopper expressed concern that the matter could now take between two and five additional months to resolve and given that Gilbert is just shy of his 32nd birthday, his window of opportunity in his profession could be closing. Moreover, Schopper still hasn’t received discovery documents from Quest Diagnostics, which performed the original tests — including the false positive on the methamphetamine — as well as an independent Oct. 5 test requested by Gilbert, which also tested positive for Stanozolol metabolite.
Gilbert said that even as recently as Friday that fellow athletes were still unaware that he had been cleared of the meth charges, which he claimed are responsible for him losing nearly all of his sponsors.
Bailey assured Schopper that he would expedite a subpoena for Quest, which up to now has refused to provide Schopper and the commission with its drug-testing protocols, something Schopper said both Quest and the commission lack.
Gilbert said he would continue training while the matter moves slowly along.
“I live my life by a certain code,” Gilbert said. “I keep in the best shape possible. Because of the situation I train like I’m fighting two weeks from this date. I go to the gym and pretend as if I’m fighting next Friday night. It keeps me mentally sharp and gives me something to aim at. Every day that things get drawn out, I just flip it another two weeks, another two weeks. Now, this time, I’ll flip it a month because I know I have a long time.
“I wasn’t the most skilled, technically sound boxer as it was, so in order for me to make any advancement in my career, I have to train at this level and stay on top of the game as much as I can. For me, the people who have been helping me financially, emotionally — it’s just been a strain on everybody.”
Unfortunately for Gilbert and those in his corner, it looks like things will remain the same for a relatively long time to come.