Gloria Allred: ‘Clearly This (Unwanted Kiss) Brings Boxing in Disrepute’

Feminist attorney Gloria Allred, who is 77 years old and looks decades younger, was a newsmaker long before the recent spate of sexual misconduct scandals greatly enhanced her profile. Nearly four decades have elapsed since the law firm she co-founded, Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, successfully sued Save-On, compelling the drugstore chain to stop the practice of consigning boys and girls toys to separate sections of their stores.

Allred’s newest client is Jennifer Ravalo who was the recipient of an unwanted kiss on the lips from Bulgarian boxer Kubrat Pulev, an incident that occurred in Costa Mesa, CA, on the evening of March 23 in a tent adjacent to the boxing pavilion where Kubrat had just defeated Bogdan Dinu. Ravalo was videotaping the interview for Vegas Sports Daily.

Yesterday (Thursday, March 28) Allred held a press conference at her Los Angeles law office that was live-streamed on her Facebook page. The conference opened with Ravalo reading a prepared statement, after which those in attendance were shown the video of the incident, a video they had undoubtedly seen before as it had gone viral on the internet.

This wasn’t by any means a lingering kiss and Ravalo didn’t recoil in revulsion – just the opposite, she laughed and said “thank you” — but she was clearly taken aback and her reaction at this awkward moment could well be interpreted as a de-escalation reflex.

On social media and in old-fashioned print publications, Kubrat Pulev has been the object of considerable scorn. Here’s freelance journalist Sirena Bergman commenting on the incident in The Independent: “It is of course disturbing to see a woman be forced into what appears to be unwanted sexual contact, but there’s something particularly despicable about it happening to her at her workplace.”

After the video went viral and he started getting a lot of heat, Kubrat Pulev attempted to cool things down by saying that he and Jennifer Ravalo were friends, an allegation that Ravalo denies. Moreover, she alleges that Pulev was guilty of another transgression later that evening when he forcefully grabbed and squeezed her buttocks at an after-party.

In her formal statement, Ravalo related that she first met Pulev at the weigh-in the previous day, during which he gave his consent to a post-fight interview. At the after-party, said Ravalo, Pulev asked her to delete the kiss from the video.

“I didn’t remove it, instead I posted it,” she said, “because I wanted people to see what he did to me. I wanted him to be accountable. I didn’t want him to get away with it. What he did to me was disgusting. I felt humiliated.” She then said that she reached out to Gloria Allred because “I felt that Ms. Allred can help me impose consequences.”

I wasn’t familiar with Vegas Sports Daily, the web site Ravalo (who also goes by the name Jenny SuShe) represented. It’s a boutique operation, likely a start-up, and I’m guessing it isn’t even published in Las Vegas although the main focus is on the city’s burgeoning sports scene. TSS West Coast Bureau Chief David Avila, an affable man who seemingly is on a first-name basis with everybody associated with boxing in Southern California, tells me he has never met her.

Shortly before the unwanted kiss, Ravalo posed this “question” to Kubrat Pulev: “You’re a tactical, sound fighter; you’re amazing to watch.” From this utterance, I inferred that as a sports journalist, she is a rookie, as we all were at one time.

Ravalo has an entrepreneurial bent. She started her own company, “Su She Art,” a catering service that began at a Costa Mesa farmers market. Her company caters events where sushi is served with floral accouterments on a flexible serving plank resting on the naked bodies of attractive young women whose private parts, we should note, are discreetly covered.

After reading her prepared statement, Ravalo wasn’t allowed to talk. Following the short video, the press conference morphed into the Gloria Allred Show.

Allred referenced Pulev’s behavior as a sexual assault and read from a letter she had e-mailed to Andy Foster, the head of the California State Athletic Commission. In the letter, she cited a section of the California code which says that the main responsibility of the California State Athletic Commission is to protect the public from harm. That didn’t happen in Costa Mesa, said Allred, as her client, although there in a professional capacity, was a member of the public.

Allred noted that the commission has been imbued with the power to suspend any licensee deemed to have brought discredit to the sport of boxing. Ergo, she has requested that Pulev be suspended until the commission can take up the matter at their next scheduled meeting on May 14.

If the CSAC heeds her recommendation, she said, “It will be a teaching moment for (Pulev) and other boxers. Clearly (his behavior) brings boxing in disrepute…It causes a lack of respect for boxers.”

Allred’s law firm specializes in sexual harassment cases. On their web site, the firm boasts that they are “Masters at Confidential Pre-litigation Settlements.”

And we suspect that is how this case will play out, with the plaintiff electing to drop the matter in return for some consideration. And then we’ll let the reader decide whether justice was served or whether the resolution was the handiwork of an extortionist.

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