Girlfriend, 20, wounded in chest

Monday, October 27, 2003

By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Police arrested boxing champion Paul Spadafora last night for the shooting of his girlfriend, who was critically wounded in the chest.

	Paul Spadafora

About two hours after Allegheny County detectives issued a warrant for criminal attempted homicide, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and violation of the uniform firearms act, Moon police apprehended Spadafora in a female companion’s vehicle about a block from his residence there.

Police had searched throughout the afternoon and evening for Spadafora, who was let go earlier after answering questions about the shooting which occurred at 5:54 a.m. outside the BP gasoline station, 801 Island Ave., McKees Rocks.

Information obtained later led police to file charges against Spadafora, said county police Sgt. Christopher Kearns, who declined to provide details.

Spadafora, 28, is a heavily tattooed fighter popular in the Pittsburgh area before and since his ascent to the International Boxing Federation lightweight title, which he claimed in 1999. He relinquished the title in June to step up from that 135-pound division to the 140-pound junior welterweight class, for which he was awaiting his first fight.

The former McKees Rocks resident, now of Moon, has had less serious run-ins with the law in the past, most recently charges of open lewdness and public intoxication early Friday.

At age 19, he was arrested for underage drinking. A year earlier, his boxing career was temporarily sidelined when he was riding in a car that tried to speed away from police, and an officer fired a shot that struck him in the leg.

Yesterday’s incident raises doubts about his future career.

The boxer’s longtime manager, Al McCauley, said he met Spadafora briefly yesterday afternoon, and the “Pittsburgh Kid’s” account was that someone fired shots at him and his girlfriend outside the gas station, and one struck her.

McCauley said that’s also the version Spadafora gave to police who interviewed him.

The manager said he discussed the events with Spadafora at about 2 p.m. at a 7-eleven on the North Side, near Allegheny General Hospital. McCauley said the boxer’s girlfriend is Nadine Russo and she is being treated at AGH, although neither police nor the hospital would confirm details.

Kearns said only that the victim is a 20-year-old woman from Beechview, and that she and Spadafora apparently had an argument, although her injuries have prevented investigators from talking to her.

“There is no way, and I’m 100 percent sure of this, that Paul would willingly or knowing do anything to hurt that girl,” McCauley said. “Either somebody was shooting at them, like he told me, or there was something accidental.”

He said Spadafora and Russo have lived together, and have dated for about a year after meeting through a mutual friend.

She is not the same woman Spadafora’s representatives said he was with before his arrest early Friday and yesterday evening when he was arrested. McCauley said that was a woman with whom he has a baby girl, and Spadafora drove up from his training camp in California, Pa., to help obtain medical care for the sick child. Later, an officer arrested him for urinating by the passenger side of a sport-utility vehicle.

“I don’t think the two things are related -- I think they’re two separate issues,” McCauley said of Friday’s and yesterday’s charges. “Sometimes right before he goes to camp for serious training he gets a little on edge, but I don’t really think the two things have anything to do with each other.”

Spadafora has been in light training recently while preparing to move up a weight class. He was to begin training seriously soon for his first junior welterweight bout, possibly to be held in late December, but his promoter, Mike Acri of Erie, said that could be sidelined.

None of his representatives recalled seeing Spadafora with a gun previously. Kearns said a .38 caliber revolver was used in the shooting, and police obtained it from the scene. The boxer’s vehicle, a Hummer H2, has been impounded.

Kearns said the shooting took place on a street corner adjacent to the BP, and the victim was lying in the parking lot when emergency officials responded.

Spadafora was to be arraigned in night court.

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