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California rejects enforcing Nevada’s suspension of fight promoter Roy Englebrecht
By Zach Arnold | June 10, 2016
When the Attorney General’s office in Nevada overcharged California fight promoter Roy Englebrecht with perjury, forgery, and ID theft, they publicly stated at a Nevada State Athletic Commission that they wanted to send a message to other states to follow suit against Englebrecht and hopefully enforce their suspension of the California promoter.
Englebrecht is one of the few local California fight promoters left on the state’s scene. He’s worth good money each year to the California State Athletic Commission. He runs Fight Promoter university and often has people associated with the state’s Athletic Commission at Fight Promoter U. His events are often social gatherings for those working on behalf of CSAC.
Which is exactly why the California State Athletic Commission is ignoring Nevada’s 18-month suspension of Roy Englebrecht after he admitted to providing false and misleading information when he filed a fighter application on behalf of boxer Zab Judah. California is under no legal obligation to honor promoter suspensions from under states, unlike fighters and other licensees as required by the Ali Act. And, naturally, they’re telling Nevada to go pound sand without saying a word.
Englebrecht ran an event at his home base of The Hangar in Costa Mesa, California on Thursday. There is absolutely no sign that California will administratively enforce Nevada’s suspension or bring up the topic at their next Athletic Commission meeting on July 12th in Los Angeles.
California’s decision to ignore the wishes of the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the state’s AG office is a fascinating political decision. Andy Foster, if nothing else, is a political animal. He ran for the open Executive Director slot in Nevada and got beat out by Bob Bennett. Now Andy is ignoring the wishes of Bennett by not enforcing Nevada’s suspension in California. The tension will escalate between the two parties. The decision to ignore Nevada’s suspension of Englebrecht now sets a precedent in the relationship between both men that should California need a favor in the future, don’t expect Las Vegas to pick up the phone and answer.
There is an interesting administrative law discussion to be had regarding the Department of Consumer Affairs, the powerful Sacramento entity which oversees the state Athletic Commission, ignoring Nevada’s perjury suspension of Roy Englebrecht. Perjury is considered an act of moral turpitude and DCA uses acts of moral turpitude all the time to revoke licenses from state professionals for DUI convictions, domestic violence charges, forgery, and (yes) perjury. These state professionals often include doctors, attorneys, notaries public, contractors, and liquor licensees. If you run a restaurant and lose your liquor license, it can be economic death. I could write a formal treatise citing the various license revocation cases DCA has pursued over the last decade.
The perjury laws in both California and Nevada are similar. California PC 118:
118. (a) Every person who, having taken an oath that he or she will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly before any competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any of the cases in which the oath may by law of the State of California be administered, willfully and contrary to the oath, states as true any material matter which he or she knows to be false, and every person who testifies, declares, deposes, or certifies under penalty of perjury in any of the cases in which the testimony, declarations, depositions, or certification is permitted by law of the State of California under penalty of perjury and willfully states as true any material matter which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of perjury.
Nevada Revised Statute 199.145:
NRS?199.145 – Statement made in declaration under penalty of perjury.??A person who, in a declaration made under penalty of perjury:
1. Makes a willful and false statement in a matter material to the issue or point in question; or
2. Willfully makes an unqualified statement of that which the person does not know to be true
Nevada’s perjury law is more liberal for interpretation than California’s but the end result is still the same. Roy Englebrecht admitted under oath that he “made a mistake” and did not contest the perjury charge in Nevada. California has little-to-no wiggle room in ignoring Nevada’s suspension by claiming that the perjury laws are somehow different between the two states.
DCA has revoked many California licenses on similar charges & circumstances, ending professional careers. They’ve chosen not to end Roy Englebrecht’s career as a promoter. He makes money for the state and his events are social gatherings for state employees. How Nevada exacts retribution upon California in future will be the next storyline to follow.
Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
This is californias world and you’re just living in it.
Another good opinion re csac consistent corruption.
Sad that writers can make a career out of writing exclusively about corrupt athletic commissions. And that nothing is done about the corruption.
Its as if writing about corruption legitimizes corruption as just another expression of american freedom. Its institutionalized.
Id like to see a police farce just for white collar crime. Tough to do because it would need to be funded by blue collar, whose assets have been stolen by white collar crooks.
In Nevada, it’s about doing “The right thing”. In California, is “About the $$$”.