A Puerto Rico court has ordered Arizona State Boxing Assistant Director John Montano to pay thousands of dollars for illegally using a boxing organization's name in sanctioning fights back in 1996 and 1997.

In deciding the lawsuit filed by the World Boxing Organization, the court said the judgment included $50,000 for legal fees.

The decision applied not only to Montano, but co-defendants Ismael "Wiso" Fernandez, a former boxing referee, and his wife, Virginia Pinto, a former WBO executive. Montano, Fernandez and Pinto were ordered to share in a $71,000 payment to WBO, while Montano was assessed an additional $21,000.

Including interest, the total amount to be repaid could top $200,000, the WBO stated on its website.

The court said Montano had no right to use the name of the North American Boxing Organization – a WBO affiliate – in sanctioning fights. Boxing champions hold titles sanctioned by a handful of recognized groups.

One of them, WBO, is headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Montano illegally sanctioned fights under the NABO name, the San Juan Superior Court said.

In a Dec. 15 ruling, Judge Ivonne Diaz Perez stated in Spanish: "The facts herein show, without any doubt, that Montano had no right to use the name and initial letters of NABO, which is, at the same time, an affiliate of the WBO, as it was the property of the plaintiffs."

The WBO first sued Montano and the other defendants in 1996, following a dispute over how the organization was run. Montano had been an officer in the WBO and NABO but was removed from his positions in a shakeup at a WBO convention on London, said Rudy Paz, WBO vice president and a former Arizona boxing commissioner.

That was about 15 years ago, Paz said.

Montano, however, continued to use the NABO name in sanctioning fights, and that's when WBO took legal action, Paz said. Montano countersued and the case dragged on for 12 years.

Sanctioning organizations receive percentages from fight revenue. In the case of the WBO – and its NABO affiliates – the money is supposed to go to WBO headquarters in Puerto Rico, Paz said.

In the mid-1990s, according to the ruling, Montano opened an account with First Interstate Bank of Arizona (now Wells Fargo) and "deposited the money earned from fights that were held under the name and logo of NABO with the endorsement of WBO."

Montano's stint as boxing director goes to back to the 1976. In the 1990s, there was no legal conflict of  interest in sanctioning fights while directing the Boxing Commission, as long as state time wasn't used, Paz said

Montano did not return calls to his office seeking for comment.