Police seek Mayweather Jr. associate in shooting

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police investigating a shooting outside a skating rink say they are seeking an associate of the company that promotes boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.

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

Police say the suspect fired several shots into a vehicle as a driver and passenger were leaving the rink’s parking lot. Nobody was hurt

Police searched one of the former pound-for-pound king’s homes and his Rolls-Royce, saying the car was involved. Mayweather has not been named a suspect, and police say he is cooperating in the investigation.

Mayweather’s manager, Leonard Ellerbe, could not immediately be reached Monday night.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police searched boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s Rolls-Royce at his home Monday in the investigation of a shooting outside a Las Vegas skating rink, authorities said.

No one was hurt, but another vehicle was hit with bullets late Sunday outside the Crystal Palace Skating Center, police Lt. Patrick Charoen said.

Officer Bill Cassell, a Las Vegas police spokesman, said it was not immediately clear whether Mayweather was present during the shooting at the ice and roller skating center several miles southeast of the Las Vegas Strip.

Charoen said witnesses described the Rolls-Royce and said it was involved in the shooting. Investigators obtained a warrant to search the vehicle at one of Mayweather’s Las Vegas-area homes.

“It doesn’t mean he was involved,” Charoen said of Mayweather. “He’s not a definite suspect. It just means the vehicle was seen at the scene.”

Mayweather’s manager, Leonard Ellerbe, denied Mayweather was involved in the shooting. He would not say whether Mayweather’s vehicle was at the scene.

“Floyd Mayweather was not involved in the reported incident. None whatsoever,” said Ellerbe, chief executive of Mayweather Promotions.

The 32-year-old Mayweather lives and trains in Las Vegas. Ellerbe said Mayweather would take part as scheduled Monday as guest host of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.’s “WWE Monday Night RAW” on cable television.

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.