Las Vegas police seek associate of company promoting Mayweather Jr., suspected in shooting

Police seek Mayweather Jr. associate in shooting

LAS VEGAS — Authorities investigating a shooting outside a skating rink were seeking an associate of the company that promoted boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., Las Vegas police said Monday night.

Police said that they suspect a man who goes by the name “O.C.” in the shooting. Authorities described the man as a “known associate” of Mayweather Promotions.

Police said the suspect fired several shots into a vehicle as a driver and passenger were leaving the parking lot outside the Crystal Palace Skating Center on Sunday night. Nobody was hurt, but police said an argument had taken place inside the ice and roller skating center a few miles southeast of the Las Vegas Strip.

Police searched one of Mayweather’s homes and his Rolls-Royce on Monday, saying the car was involved.

Mayweather has not been named a suspect, and police said he is cooperating in the investigation. Authorities said it was not immediately clear whether Mayweather was present during the shooting.

Mayweather’s manager, Leonard Ellerbe, could not immediately be reached Monday night. Ellerbe is the chief executive of Mayweather Promotions.

Earlier in the day, Ellerbe denied Mayweather was involved. He would not say whether Mayweather’s vehicle was at the scene.

“Floyd Mayweather was not involved in the reported incident. None whatsoever,” Ellerbe told The Associated Press.

Police Lt. Patrick Charoen said witnesses described the Rolls-Royce and said it was involved in the shooting.

The 32-year-old Mayweather lives and trains in Las Vegas.

Ellerbe also took part in a conference call Monday announcing that Mayweather’s Sept. 19 comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand resort in Las Vegas will be shown live in about 170 theaters nationwide. The bout will also be shown on pay-per-view television.

Mayweather is considered a pound-for-pound boxing king, having won six world boxing championships in five weight classes. He is undefeated in 39 fights, with 25 knockouts.

The bout with Marquez (50-4-1, 37 KOs) was delayed in July after Mayweather damaged rib cartilage while training.

The former Olympic bronze medalist traded his “Pretty Boy” nickname for “Money” before abruptly retiring last year and turning his attention to show business.

Despite making millions of dollars in his career, public records show he was hit with an Internal Revenue Service lien last October for more than $6 million in unpaid taxes. Ellerbe has disputed the documents and said he believed they were inaccurate. Clark County Recorder records showed Monday that the lien remained unresolved.

Mayweather appeared on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007, and has been featured in an AT&T television commercial.

Mayweather grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he was fined in February 2005 and ordered to perform community service after pleading no contest to misdemeanor assault and battery for a bar fight.

A year earlier, he was convicted of misdemeanor battery stemming from a fight with two women at a Las Vegas nightclub. He received a suspended one-year jail sentence and was ordered to undergo “impulse-control” counseling.

A lawyer who won an acquittal for Mayweather in 2005 after he was charged with hitting his former girlfriend in 2003 outside a Las Vegas nightclub was out of town Monday and unavailable for comment.

Associated Press writer Oskar Garcia contributed to this report.