Joe Diaz’s Top Level boxing gym occupies an industrial-style block building on Jefferson Street, just east of the Carnegie Library grounds. It’s hard to miss. It’s the one with Joe Diaz’s name, in billboard-size letters.

There are lots of posters on the outside wall, too, including one of Luis Ramon “Yory Boy” Campas. He’s Mr. Diaz’s most prized prizefighter. Next to the Campas poster are enlarged photocopies of two checks. The check on top, for $5,000 from boxing promoter Peter McKinn, is made out to Mr. Campas.

As it turned out, Mr. Campas never cashed the actual check. It was no good.

It was also the spark of an ongoing dispute between Mr. Diaz and the Arizona Boxing Commission. The commission refused to sanction the promoter who wrote the check, despite Mr. Diaz’s complaints. In his pursuit of the matter, he says he has encountered evidence of cronyism between the commission and the promoter. On top of that, Mr. Diaz claims that the commission chairwoman and her husband, an aide to the governor, meddled with a case arising from the bad check.

In the middle of it all, the commission denied Mr. Diaz a training license. His boxers can’t fight professionally in Arizona. Mr. Diaz says it was retaliation for his complaints about Mr. McKinn.

Commission Chairwoman Mary Rose Wilcox says Mr. Diaz was denied a license for an unrelated violation.

The feud has involved sworn affidavits, allegations about forged signatures, pickets, lots of lawyers, a handwriting expert, bad checks, cash that either existed or didn’t, a criminal case and at least two lawsuits.

Mr. Diaz tells a reporter: “No, it’s not that complicated.”

Ms. Wilcox, one of Mr. Diaz’s prime targets for complaint, chairs the three-member commission. Though her term expired in January, she will hold the seat until the governor names a replacement. Ms. Wilcox also sits on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

The two other members of the Boxing Commission are Lionel Ruiz and Richard Saunders. The commission regulates professional boxing and wrestling in Arizona. It licenses trainers, boxers, promoters and other fight professionals. Licenses expire Dec. 31 and you cannot manage or promote a fight in Arizona without one.

Mr. Diaz himself is an ex-boxer turned trainer and manager. He’s got the pug-like look of a guy who’s thrown a few — and likely — taken a few punches. He can be outgoing and friendly. But there’s a bit of the pit bull in him, too, especially if he believes he’s been crossed.

“Everybody will tell you that once I get on your trail, you might as well kill me, because I’m not going to let go,” Mr. Diaz says.

His tenacity has been backed up by midnight runs to Kinko’s, copying by the hundreds documents he says support his claims against the Boxing Commission. They are stacked up on tables inside his gym. He delivers and mails them to anyone he thinks might have an interest in his story, including other gym owners.

It began with a fight

But some claims have the ring of substance. That’s in part because Mr. Diaz recruited the best weapon for any prolonged battle: lawyers. He estimates his legal fees and expenses have topped $50,000. Other gym owners with a beef against the commission have pitched in to help defray the costs, he says.

Mr. Diaz traces his troubles back to May 8, 2004, at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix. His fighter, Yory Boy Campas, received a $5,000 check as part of a purse. The check was signed by fight promoter McKinn, who Mr. Diaz describes as a one-time friend.

That friendship, however, had already soured over questions about money promoters had withheld from Mr. Campas on previous fights. The promoters told Mr. Diaz they had to pay Mr. Campas’s U.S. and Mexican income taxes. Mr. Campas makes his home in Mexico. Mr. Diaz had questioned the withholdings and argued with Mr. McKinn about them.

Things between the two went from bad to worse when Mr. Diaz and Mr. Campas took the check to the bank. Bank officials said the account didn’t have the money to cover it. Mr. Campas tried repeatedly to cash the check, Mr. Diaz says — right up to the day the account was closed.

Angered, Mr. Diaz asked the Boxing Commission to sanction Mr. McKinn. The commission took no action.

Picketing the commission

Mr. Diaz then began picketing outside the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) building, which houses the commission offices. He didn’t have to go far. The ADEQ building is only a few hundred yards from his gym. The picketing carried over into the next year.

In a Jan. 14, 2005, letter to John MontaÑo, assistant director for the boxing commission, Mr. Diaz said: “I will continue to picket every two weeks, until his license is REVOKED and Peter McKinn is REMOVED from boxing.”

In an interview, however, Mr. MontaÑo says Mr. Diaz’s dispute with Mr. McKinn was a personal matter. The commission had no role to play.

“Because an individual is unhappy with another individual, they are not going to use the commission as a weapon against somebody else,” Mr. MontaÑo says.

Mr. Diaz says cheating a boxer of out prize money isn’t a personal matter. He says the commission was protecting Mr. McKinn because of his ties to Ms. Wilcox and her husband, Earl Wilcox, a special assistant to Governor Napolitano.

Ms. Wilcox says there was no favoritism at play.

Regarding Mr. McKinn, she says: “We all know him in boxing. He’s a major promoter in our state.”

Two attempts to contact Mr. McKinn were made during the writing of this story. He did not return calls made to McKinn Boxing Promotions in Phoenix.

Ombudsman: Commission should re-examine complaint

Mr. Diaz punched back, filing a complaint with the state ombudsman/citizens’ aide. The ombudsman’s office routinely investigates complaints about an agency.

In a December report, the ombudsman said the commission’s Mr. MontaÑo fell short in his investigation of the bad-check claim.

“The report did not confirm that the promoter actually did write a bad check and that the commission had a copy of it,” the report says. “Additionally, the copy of the check was not included in the attachments the commission received with the report.”

In a cover letter, state ombudsman Patrick Shannahan said the commission should reconsider Mr. Diaz’s complaint to determine if any laws had been broken.

Racing director Geoffrey Gonsher — to whom Mr. MontaÑo reports — said the commission would likely take no action because a lawsuit is pending. Mr. Diaz’s attorney, Claudio Iannitelli, filed the suit against Mr. McKinn on behalf of Mr. Campas in May.

In early 2005, a separate criminal complaint was filed with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office bad check enforcement division. The misdemeanor charge against Mr. McKinn went before Justice of the Peace Carlos Mendoza of the Downtown Justice Court in Phoenix (formerly the East Valley Justice Court No. 1.)

Court officers, however, were unable to summon Mr. McKinn to appear in court. They couldn’t find him. In June, Judge Mendoza issued a warrant for his arrest.

Mr. McKinn showed up the courthouse July 15 — with Mr. Wilcox.

In an interview, Judge Mendoza said: “The clerk had knocked on my door and said, ‘Mr. Wilcox is here to see you.’”

Judge Mendoza says he was unaware that the other person was Peter McKinn. According to Judge Mendoza, Mr. Wilcox started off with small talk — mentioning he was an aide to the governor and that his wife was on the boxing commission, as well as a county supervisor.

“After we had that small talk, he said Mr. McKinn is here because he has a warrant out for his arrest,” Judge Mendoza says. “I didn’t know he was a defendant until (Mr. Wilcox) brought me up to full speed, because I didn’t know I had an order of arrest against him.”

Mr. Wilcox made no demands, Judge Mendoza says.

“He didn’t flat out say to me, you’d better do this,” the JP says, adding: “Once he mentioned Mr. McKinn, I stopped him right there.”

He told Mr. Wilcox and Mr. McKinn, to return to the front desk.

Referring to Mr. Wilcox, he adds: “It’s hard for me to get into his head to see what his motives were. What I can ascertain was I didn’t feel that it was kosher.”

A court staff member recalls a different version of events. The staffer says Judge Mendoza asked to see Mr. McKinn’s file while the defendant and Mr. Wilcox were still in the judge’s chambers. The staffer — who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal — said that when the judge told an office worker to bring the file, he asked Mr. McKinn: “How do you spell your name≠”

The staffer says Mr. Wilcox and Mr. McKinn spent up to 30 minutes in the judge’s chambers, including 10 minutes with the file.

After that, the staffer says, “they departed from the chamber and went out to the courtroom and the judge went to the bench.”

In open court that afternoon Judge Mendoza quashed Mr. McKinn’s arrest warrant, setting him free on his own recognizance.

Mr. Wilcox, reached at his office, referred questions to Pati Urias, a spokeswoman for Governor Napolitano. In an e-mail, Ms. Urias had no comment as the issue was not work-related.

Three days after Mr. Wilcox’s visit, Ms. Wilcox got into the act, says Mr. Diaz’s attorneys. Reviewing case records, they came across a 12-page fax apparently sent from Ms. Wilcox to the prosecutor, deputy county attorney Andrea Kever. Dated July 18, the cover-page says: “from the office of Mary Rose Wilcox… Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.”

The fax contained documents related to the case, including a photocopy of a notice to Peter McKinn on another alleged bad check. Handwriting on the margin says: “Andrea. This is another case Joe tried to get Peter on — this was cleared up.”

At the bottom is an ink-stamped seal reading: “Joe Diaz Certified State Liar” The word “approved” appears over a replica of the Arizona state flag.

Along with Ms. Wilcox’s name, Mr. Iannitelli says, the fax contained documents available to her as a boxing commissioner. The handwriting, according to his client, appears to be hers, Mr. Iannitelli adds.

“I mean I’m not sure what more one would need,” he says.

Supervisor Wilcox: Diaz angered over license denial

Ms. Wilcox, however, says she was unaware of any fax. Mr. Diaz is simply lashing out because the commission denied him a trainer’s license, she says.

“You know what, I don’t know what Joe’s talking about, I really don’t, because he hasn’t shown me anything,” Ms. Wilcox says.

Ms. Kever referred questions to Maricopa county attorney spokesman Bill FitzGerald. In an e-mail, Mr. FitzGerald said: “She did receive something from Ms. Wilcox, but I don’t know how it was printed or what it was printed on.”

Ms. Kever moved to dismiss the case July 20, without citing a specific reason. Judge Mendoza dismissed it a week later.

“We see a document saying to dismiss, we dismiss,” Judge Mendoza says.

Enter the justice court

Mr. FitzGerald adds the matter has been turned over to Phoenix police for further review. Mr. Diaz says investigators are now looking into possible charges of forgery arising out of the bad-check case.

Just the same, he has tried to keep the ball rolling in justice court.

“I went back and refiled, and they took the case,” Mr. Diaz says.

In the latest round of hearings, Judge Mendoza has recused himself, replaced by Judge Pro Tem Yancey Garner. Judge Garner asked the parties for more information in a hearing on Jan. 12.

Mr. Diaz says somebody forged his signature on a document to make it appear as though he was paid the $5,000 after all — only in cash.

In dispute, Mr. Iannitelli says, are an affidavit and a receipt that had been on file with the commission. According the affidavit, dated April 20, 2005, an employee of Mr. McKinn swears Mr. Diaz received $5,000 in cash the night of the fight. A receipt for cash, dated May 8, 2004, shows what appears to be Mr. Diaz’s signature.

In a separate letter, Mr. McKinn’s lawyer at time said Mr. Diaz, having been paid in cash, should have returned the check.

Mr. Diaz says the cash receipt was news to him. For one, he says, purses are rarely paid in cash. And, more to the point, he denies signing it.

To back him up, Mr. Iannitelli hired handwriting expert William Flynn to examine the receipt. Mr. Flynn’s Dec. 15 report concluded that Mr. Diaz was “not the author of the ‘Joe Diaz’ appearing on the questioned petty cash receipt.”

As Mr. Diaz’s pressed his claims, the commission did act in June of last year. It denied Mr. Diaz an application for a training license. His boxers have to go out of state — usually Las Vegas — to fight.

Then, in October, the commission moved to strip Mr. Campas of his boxing license as well.

Mr. Diaz says the commission retaliated against him for complaints about Mr. McKinn.

Not so, says Mr. MontaÑo.

Mr. Diaz’s license was denied, he says, because he had tried to defraud promoter McKinn of $3,000.

This goes back to another fight at the Dodge Theatre, on March 26, 2004. Mr. MontaÑo says Mr. Diaz signed a “boxer payout sheet” showing Mr. Campas had received a $3,000 check as part of a larger purse. Mr. Diaz told the commission he never signed the sheet for that check. He says he didn’t even know about the sheet until March 2005, when he spotted it among the commission’s records.

But Mr. MontaÑo says he saw Mr. Diaz sign the sheet, as did his assistant. In a June 30 letter to Mr. Diaz, Mr. MontaÑo said that same check was later cashed by Mr. Campas.

“These actions constitute an attempt by you, and Luis Ramon Campas, to collect $3,000, by deceit, fraud and, or with the intent to substantially injure another,” Mr. MontaÑo wrote.

But Mr. Diaz says: “I never claimed they owed me any money. I did not sign for that $3,000 check.”

Ms. Wilcox says, however, the evidence does not support Mr. Diaz.

“He swears that’s not his signature, but the people who testified are people that disburse checks at every fight,” she says.

The commission’s decision to deny the license, she adds, was unanimous.

Mr. Flynn, the handwriting expert, has again been called in by Mr. Diaz’s lawyers. He has not yet reported his findings.

Meanwhile Mr. Iannitelli has filed a second suit, this one appealing the commission’s denial of Mr. Diaz’s training license.

But the real victim in all this is Yory Boy Campas, Mr. Iannitelli says.

“Campas never did anything,” Mr. Iannitelli says. “He has lost like 200-plus thousand dollars in purses and contracts he could have had because of the way he’s being denied a license…”

FYI

A commission hearing for Mr. Campas is set for 2:30 p.m. Feb. 28, at 1110 W. Washington.