Hit Man - Brian Hughes [28]
FBI Special Agent Dale Taulbee began to unravel a complex web of lies and deceit, with Smith at the centre. When Taulbee tried to carry out a background check on him, searching all the public and private records, he was troubled when he couldn’t find anything earlier than 1974. It was a few days after his name had been made public that a man, who gave his name as Dewey Hughes, contacted the FBI claiming to have valuable information on Smith. Hughes was a Washington-based disc jockey and had known Smith through the city’s nightclub scene, where Smith owned the Sammy Davis Jr club. He revealed that Smith’s real name was Ross Eugene Fields, a man with a history of fraud.
Smith/Fields was arrested re-entering the country in April. Two days later, he appeared before magistrates charged with offences dating back to 1967. These included six charges of fraud and false pretences. One of these charges alleged that between 1973 and 1974, Smith had cashed over one hundred fraudulent cheques across the country. It was also revealed that his wife, Barbara Lee Smith, was actually Alice Vicki Darrow, wanted in Alabama for interstate transportation of fraudulent securities. When he was asked to respond, Smith, who represented himself, gave an impassioned defence, stating that he had set up a scholarship fund for disadvantaged youths in the name of Sammy Davis Jr. He screamed out, “I am a man of God. I’ve been to the mountain top!” whilst proclaiming his innocence in the Wells Fargo scandal. His bail was initially set at $200,000, although this was doubled the day after.
After a lengthy trial and eight days of jury deliberations, Smith was found guilty of thirty-one separate charges. The total amount he had stolen from the bank, much of it spent on boxers’ purses, was a staggering $21 million. His last bid for leniency was a crude but typical attempt at flattery, as he told the female judge, Consuelo Marshall, that she was “a most beautiful black woman.” Judge Marshall was unmoved and sentenced him to ten years in the federal penitentiary. Benjamin Lewis received a five-year sentence and Sammie Marshall got thee years. MAPS was no more.
7 SHOWDOWN IN THE DESERT
SUGAR RAY LEONARD was equipped with speed, knockout power, an over-abundance of boxing ability and bags of natural charisma. He had filled the void created by Muhammad Ali’s retirement in 1981 to become boxing’s superstar and one of the most recognisable sportsmen in America. Like Hearns, his family had moved north from a southern state – in his case, from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Washington, D.C. – in search of opportunity, before eventually settling in Maryland. An uncommonly gifted amateur, he leapt into the wider public consciousness when winning a gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. He turned professional amid reams of publicity, which he justified when winning the world welterweight title in 1979, stopping Wilfred Benitez in the fifteenth round of a classy contest. He entered the 1980s as a world champion and would end it as one. In the decade between, he would