David Tua not the only one ruing involvement with Martin Pugh

PHIL TAYLOR concludes the Herald's three-part series:

 
Martin Pugh could be forgiven a sense of deja vu when he arrived at work on Monday, July 28, last year to find he'd been the victim of a raid by boxer David Tua. A similar thing happened a couple of years earlier when Kevin Reynolds marched unannounced into the same second-floor offices and commanded Pugh's attention by sweeping everything on to the floor.

"He was speechless," says Reynolds, "and then the yelling started." It was Reynolds, father of former model Robin Reynolds, who did most of the yelling.

Among the items swept from Pugh's desk were photographs of a naked Robin Reynolds. Pugh had used a selection of nude shots on a website he'd set up without, says Kevin Reynolds, her knowledge.

Pugh had controlled her life for about a year, during which she sold articles around the world on the back of her sexual liaison with pop star Robbie Williams. Those articles made her a regular feature in tabloid publications overseas and at home, where she appeared in magazines such as Woman's Day.

Selling stories brought in about $50,000 but Robin Reynolds received only one payment directly and claims Pugh still owes her money. Pugh denies this and says he is the one out of pocket.

Pugh had told Robin Reynolds he could turn her childhood dream of making it in Hollywood into reality, says her father. Kevin Reynolds believes Pugh's formula included his daughter dishing out sexual favors at Pugh's behest while they lived it up in the United States on money generated by the industry that was boxer David Tua.

Kevin Reynolds accused Pugh of having sex with his daughter and says Pugh - who claims his business interests include developing "penis products" such as a drug to enhance the effects of Viagra - did not deny it. When Robin Reynolds' parents telephoned Pugh about their concerns early in their daughter's association with him, he had talked them round.

Kevin Reynolds: "He said, 'Look, I'm a professional manager. Leave it to me, it will be a story from rags to riches ... it will be the biggest success story you ever saw'." It wasn't.

Kevin Reynolds was in Pugh's offices that day for the same reason Tua found it necessary to remove files: he didn't trust Pugh. Only after he took away Tuaman Inc files did Tua learn where his money may have gone. One discovery Robin Reynolds made was that Pugh had charged her for his own botox treatment.

Pugh was the image-maker, the marketing man whose job was to squeeze every dollar from the product, which was David Tua, aka The Tuaman. Soon after joining the Tua team, Pugh described his role as "worrying about the money David doesn't care about".

The sports media was introduced to Pugh at a 2000 press conference in the lead-up to Tua's world title fight against Lennox Lewis. They were also introduced to the Tua Tough Teddy, a Tua doll with tall hair like American boxing promoter Don King's. It was time to cash in on Tua's new status as a realistic title contender.

King, a self-made man with a manslaughter conviction and a reputation as lord of the boxing ring, seems to have been an inspiration for Pugh.

Pugh gained attention in Las Vegas, a town not short of people wanting to stand out, by wearing rings on his toes. Pugh and Barry chose Las Vegas as Tua's overseas base.

Barry had been with Tua seven years by the time Pugh joined. An Olympic medalist himself, and not short of ambition, Barry was an important factor in bringing Tua to the verge of a world title.

With the biggest pay day in sight - Tua earned $6 million for the Lewis fight - and immeasurable money-making opportunities if the New Zealander upset the champ, they seemed to get distracted from the core business of winning boxing bouts.

The Prince Ranch, where Tua prepared, was a fantasyland from a Hunter S. Thompson drug-fuelled dream. Along with its secluded boxing gym came a nuclear attack shelter, wild animals, including a lion and tiger, and bedrooms the size of football fields.

A Who's Who of boxing legends and Hollywood actors lent star status to the November fight at the Mandalay Bay Casino.

Brian Kennedy, an American sportswriter with two decades of experience covering boxing, says Tua's management embraced the showbiz side. "They were caught up in the Las Vegas hype, there's no doubt about that. He always fought in Vegas, trained in Vegas and it could be that is what went off the rails.

"Don King's style wafted over Martin Pugh," says Kennedy. "He became a sort of Don King. He dressed the part, played the part, and girls were part of that."

One of those girls was Robin Reynolds. She later told her father about the party lifestyle Tua's managers led. She knows the details, says her father, because she lived it with them.

Kennedy was taken aback, because that had not been Tua's style and "being from Canada, I thought New Zealanders were a bit different from Americans.

"It seemed [Pugh] had fallen into that same category; y'all gotta have the big parties, the nice-looking women, and that makes you larger than life."

Kennedy says he didn't see Tua at a party before his title bout against Lewis but he did see Pugh. "I don't think Tua got caught up in the Las Vegas hype as his promoters did."

Pugh told the Weekend Herald last year, before he stopped talking to the newspaper, that he'd met Reynolds for the first time at a party after Tua fought Lewis. But Kennedy says Pugh had already been hustling to get her on shows. His company did an item with her and he believed she appeared on HBO.

TVNZ also did an interview with Reynolds promoting the fight and Kevin Reynolds believes his daughter was at the fight at Pugh's invitation. Kennedy: "We did one thing with her. There's not a chance she's going to be a boxing analyst."

Kevin Barry, in an affidavit filed in his and Pugh's High Court case with the boxer, says fame changed the boy from Samoa and Mangere, and that this dispute is about Tua trying to get as much money as he can at the twilight of his career.

Barry likens the break-up of Tuaman to "a death in the family" and accuses Tua of being disrespectful and showing bad faith. The boxer started to live in a fantasy world, he claims.

"David said I started to change. The person that actually changed was him. All these stories about how fame and fortune haven't changed him were just PR."

Tua, in his affidavit, says Barry changed during the journey in which Tua came to be ranked in the top tier of professional boxers. This had started after Pugh became co-manager. "He [Barry] started to get more like Martin Pugh. I did not like this."

After Pugh's arrival and the Las Vegasisation of Tua as The Tuaman, Barry, a former plasterer from the Christchurch suburb of Burnside, underwent an image makeover. Expensive clothes complemented a hair implant.

Expenses statements on the court file show Barry preferred quality brands such as Ralph Lauren, and top-of-the-range sunglasses.

Barry points out he still lives in the same modest Green Bay home for the third of each year he's not in the United States on Tuaman business. His affidavit doesn't mention he owns an $80,000 Mercedes wagon.

Tua's witnesses claim Barry has overdrawn his entitlement of Tuaman funds by $848,000 and Pugh by $1 million. Barry and Pugh say proper accounting will see them owed money.

Barry trusted Pugh enough to make him a trustee of his family trust. Barry told the Weekend Herald last week he continued to have faith in Pugh and that Tuaman was run in Tua's best interests.

According to Tua's affidavit, the boxer agreed to Pugh joining because Barry was convinced he had the skills they needed. Tua said Barry told him Pugh was a multi-millionaire at a young age through nightclubs, "was a smart guy and could make good investments for me".

It's unclear whether Barry knew Pugh filed for bankruptcy two years after making a fortune from the sale of his nightclub chain, or that his only formal management qualification is a certificate from a course he did while a junior manager at the old supermarket chain, Four Square.

What did Barry know about Richard Gregory, a friend of Pugh's, who allowed a Vanuatu company to be set up in his name? Tua's lawyers allege this was used to cover "conversions, misappropriations, and failures to account, thereby committing further fraud".

Last week, Barry said he wasn't available for an interview. But he did know of Gregory's role in the business.

"Richard had a very important role and it was a very significant role in the business dealings of Tuaman Inc and David Tua."

Barry said he'd been unaware Gregory had a criminal record but "I don't really believe that that mattered at the time. All I knew was what his role was". What was that? "Look, it's not up to me to go over Richard Gregory's role."

After Tua announced he'd sacked his managers, Barry flew to Auckland from Las Vegas and did some PR of his own. He told the media he'd been let down and hurt by Tua, who was godfather to his sons and virtually a member of his family. Tua, he said, had been "disrespectful to me, somebody who had dedicated so much of his life to him, you know, someone who had put him ahead of his family".

After their dumping by Tua, Barry dealt with the media while Pugh organized the litigation claiming Tua had stolen company files. He also set about trying to sell a strip of Pakiri coastal land which Tua says he thought was his but which is owned by Tuaman Inc.

Under the advice of his new lawyer, Tua has put a caveat on the property, halting the sale. It was put on the property's title when the boxer had no idea Pugh had signed an agreement to sell it for $15 million. Only after the caveat was listed on the title, effectively stopping any sale unless Tua agreed to it, did Pugh reveal the sale deal.

Pugh had been fighting another precautionary move advised by Tua's lawyer - to list Tua as a director, along with Pugh, of Tuaman Inc. Until then Pugh, as sole director, could make company decisions alone.

In his litigation against Tua, Pugh asked the High Court to remove Tua as a director. This has yet to be dealt with but Tua's advisers see it as an attempt by Pugh to restore his ability to sell Pakiri on his own.

Pakiri is the main asset left in the Tuaman business. Pugh has told the court the land is worth $15 million. But it is on a stretch of coast affected by hotly contested conservation issues and Maori land interests.

Tua's chartered accountant, Tony Forlong, says in an affidavit filed in the High Court that the property's value may be seriously restricted by the possibility it could be designated a coastal reserve and the unlikelihood of gaining consent for large-scale subdivision.

The land was bought in the name of Tuaman Inc for $7.5 million, of which $3.7 million was provided by way of a mortgage to ASB Bank.

That leaves equity in the property of $3.8 million to add to about $1 million in frozen Tuaman company bank accounts. However, the tax department is poised to launch an investigation following the indication made in court documents of tax irregularities.

The Weekend Herald understands Tuaman Inc's tax liability could be between $2 million and $3 million. Add legal and other costs, and there may not be much for Tua and his managers to fight over.

Properties Pugh is associated with were put up for sale last month. About $6 million is being asked for the Takapuna home he shares with partner Sally Cross. Tua has put a caveat on it because his witnesses in the court case claim as much as $750,000 of Tuaman money has been spent renovating it.

About $900,000 is wanted for a Birkenhead home of which the Weekend Herald believes Pugh is the beneficial owner. It is owned in the name of a company fronted by Gregory.

Pugh says he has acted in Tua's interests and that his detractors don't understand the full picture. "A little knowledge is dangerous."

Barry says he feels unappreciated and that, while he doesn't understand all of Pugh's transactions and has been out of New Zealand for much of the time since Pugh joined, he's "confident and comfortable in the business practice of Tuaman Inc".

Tua declined to be interviewed, saying the time was not right. But he is understood to be philosophical, having told a friend that all things happen for a reason and this experience, too, offers lessons to be learned.

As for Robin Reynolds, she is understood to be in the US, still pursuing her dream of stardom, still hoping for her money. Her parents have lost contact with her but remain fearful of the long-term consequences of their daughter's liaison with Pugh.

* Email Phil Taylor

The story so far

David Tua discovered he had lost control of his $20 million earnings after raiding the offices of Tuaman Inc. In court documents, he accuses Martin Pugh of forgery and misappropriating money in all directions. It is alleged hundreds of thousands of dollars went on furnishing Pugh's house and that payments were made to a company, Sports Tech, owned by Pugh associate Richard Gregory, formerly Richard Booth, who was jailed in 1995 for an insurance scam. A 50ha block at Pakiri and an inner-Auckland penthouse were not the boxer's sole property. Long-time manager Kevin Barry has sided with Pugh, accusing Tua in his affidavit of greed and dishonesty.
 

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