[July 1989 article] Monzon Gets 11 years for Homicide

30 years ago this month.

From (Associated Press) Monzon Gets 11 years for Homicide, July 4, 1989.

Mar Del Plata, Argentina—Former middleweight champion Carlos Monzon was convicted Monday night of homicide in the February 1988 death of his longtime companion, Alicia Muniz.

Monzon, 47, was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay court costs and $25,000 to Muniz’ family. […]

Monzon declared when the trial opened last Monday that he was innocent. He admitted he drank a lot of champagne that night and slapped Muniz, but insisted he tried to grab her as she went over the low balcony rail and that he fell, too.

‘There are many things I don’t remember,’ he told the three-member Criminal Appeals Court panel. But he insisted: ‘I didn’t kill Alicia..I wasn’t going to kill the woman I loved.’

A witness testified, however, that he saw Monzon ‘give her a one-two’ combination with his fists, and then lift Muniz to his shoulder ‘like a sack of potatoes’ and throw her over. Then Monzon jumped to the ground from the rail, scrap collector Rafael Baez said.

A taxi driver testified that Monzon and Muniz were quarreling when he dropped them off at the apartment building in Mar del Plata.

Doctors who performed two autopsies testified for the prosecution that Muniz had been throttled by the neck before she fell about 15 feet directly on her head without using her arms or body to protect herself.

The incident occurred shortly before dawn on Feb. 14, 1988. Monzon was arrested that day and has been held in preventive detention ever since.

The case won wide attention in Argentina, where Monzon was a sports idol in his heyday and would-be movie star after he retired.

 

"The former champ continued to maintain his innocence in spite of his comments about his temper, even recalling to Irusta happy days he spent with Alicia, and often asked to see the son they had together, Maximiliano.

Irusta was deeply saddened.

“He was another man,” Irusta said. “When he was champion, he was like a king or a lion. He used to walk in a way that made him look important. In jail, he was nothing. The man who used to give orders to people was now a man who said, ‘Yes sir, yes sir.’"

 

Yes.

 

Part of the problem is it seems like everyone turned a blind eye or made excuses for his violence until it was too late. Hell, some of his fanboys probably found it thrilling that he was a real life brute and didn't just play one on tv... Even after he was convicted of killing his wife, some influential people and politicians continued to idolize him and minimize his crime.