Victor Conte Responds to Angel Heredia’s Defamation Suit
By Gabriel Montoya, MaxBoxing (Nov 10, 2011) Doghouse Boxing
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It was
reported by BoxingScene.com's Rick Reeno that
Juan Manuel Marquez’s strength-and-conditioning coach, Angel “Memo” Heredia, had
indeed filed a defamation suit against Victor Conte. Conte brought to light (via
Twitter) the true identity of the man HBO’s “24/7” referred to as Angel
Hernandez. Reporters picked up the story of Heredia’s past involvement with
allegedly dealing performance-enhancing drugs (like the blood doping agent EPO
and human growth hormone) to track coaches on the world stage. Heredia was also
a key informant in the cases of coaches Trevor Graham and Raymond Stewart.
The Marquez
camp claims they knew nothing of the man who went on German TV in a revealing documentary
aired during the 2009 World Track and Field Championship in Berlin. The
documentary demonstrated how easy it was to buy EPO in a Mexico City pharmacy
and featured Heredia injecting it into himself on camera. That is plausible
considering not even HBO knew who he was until the story broke on Conte’s Twitter
account where he posted several interviews of Heredia discussing his
testimonies and his past. Our own Steve Kim picked up the story and ran with
and it has spread like wildfire ever since.
Heredia was quoted by Reeno as
saying, “There is a lawsuit pending, a lawsuit against [Conte]. That's why I
can't comment too much on it. We filed the lawsuit. It makes me laugh because
the guy is just a hypocrite. The guy has not only been convicted but he's also
a liar. It's obvious he's jealous of me. I guess he feels because I'm being a
part of boxing today, that I'm going to be his competition again. His athletes
could end up being mine and he knows that I have a background [in strength-and-conditioning
and an] education. He doesn't have a degree. He's always been jealous. And even
before he was talking about me, he was always talking about Alex Ariza and
always talking about Manny [Pacquiao],” Hernandez added.
Conte, the co-founder of BALCO who did time for his
involvement in his company’s doping and steroids scandal, was sued for
defamation by Marion Jones and Shane Mosley, who were both implicated in the
case. Conte won both cases. In a text message sent to me by Conte, he said, “‘Memo's’ defamation lawsuit against me makes no
sense. The truth is a defense, in and of itself. I'm 2-0 against the
frivolous defamation lawsuits filed against me by Marion Jones and Shane
Mosley. In my opinion, this is nothing more than a PR stunt. All I have
done is to tell the truth.”
More
details to follow on this developing story.
Please be sure to check out our new
video featuring our own Steve Kim and videographer Brian Harty’s excellent
coverage of Manny Pacquiao in preparation for his Saturday night showdown
against Juan Manuel Marquez. You can find it right here.
You can email Gabriel
at maxgmontoya@gmail.com, follow him on
Twitter at www.twitter.com/gabriel_montoya and catch
him on each Monday’s episode of “The Next Round” with Steve Kim. You can
also tune in to hear him and co-host David Duenez live on the
BlogTalk radio show Leave-It-In-The-Ring.com,
Thursdays at 5-8 PM PST. Gabriel is a full member of the Boxing Writers
Association of America.
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