Lawyer for Arturo Gatti’s widow says findings of U.S. probe lack credibility

The lawyer representing Arturo Gatti’s widow says the investigation into the boxer’s death has not been reopened in Brazil.

Brazilian prosecutors told The Associated Press on Thursday they are analyzing the case again.

But lawyer Pierre-Hugues Fortin, who is representing widow Amanda Rodrigues at a civil trial in Montreal, says that’s not the case.

Fortin says as far as he knows, no one has filed a motion in Brazilian court calling for the case to be reviewed.

“I was asked if there was a reopening of the case in Brazil and my answer is no, there is no reopening,” Fortin said.

“I don’t know if the Gatti family or anyone else in Brazil wishes to present a motion before the courts but this is not the case as we speak.”

No members of the Gatti clan or their lawyer, Carmine Mercadante, commented on the report out of Brazil.

Brazilian authorities previously ruled Gatti’s 2009 death a suicide but a private U.S. probe funded by Gatti’s former manager, Pat Lynch, says he was killed.

The report was released in New Jersey on Wednesday, a day after the beginning of the Montreal civil trial aimed at determining who inherits Gatti’s multimillion-dollar fortune.

Fortin says his client Rodrigues rejects the New Jersey report and that he believes it lacks credibility and objectivity.

“She is in disagreement with the conclusions of the report,” Fortin said.

He also says it is important to make a distinction between the 300-page U.S. investigation and a Quebec coroner’s probe into Gatti’s death.

Those findings have not yet been released.

In July 2009, three weeks after the 37-year-old Gatti was found dead in a hotel room in a seaside resort, police ruled his death a suicide.

They had initially arrested Rodrigues, saying she had strangled him with her purse strap as he slept.

The lead police investigator at the time did not say why he decided the death was instead a suicide.

A judge ordered the release of Rodrigues, citing the police investigation and writing that “the victim took his own life, committing suicide by hanging.”

In Brazil on Thursday, a spokesman with the Pernambuco state prosecutor’s office said prosecutor Paula Ismail may ask for the U.S. investigators’ findings. She could bring murder charges or decide to uphold the original investigation’s findings that Gatti killed himself.

“She will make an announcement after she is done analyzing the evidence presented after the initial investigation,” said Jacques Cerqueira, who noted that the case was never technically closed.

He said Ismail could also ask for additional investigation.

Responding to a question, Cerquiera said charges against Rodrigues are possible.

With files from The Associated Press