MONTREAL – The civil trial over the estate of boxer Arturo Gatti is approaching its end with an assault on his widow’s credibility.
In his closing arguments, the Gatti family lawyer calls her a master manipulator who forced the boxer, just before he died, to sign a will that left her everything.
Lawyer Carmine Mercadante says Amanda Rodrigues knew Gatti’s weakness and used it against him.
He says Gatti signed the will to ensure Rodrigues wouldn’t take his son away from him.
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Just weeks after signing that will in 2009, the popular Canadian fighter was found dead at a Brazilian resort of an apparent suicide.
Lawyers are wrapping up closing arguments this week after an often testy legal battle over the boxing champ’s fortune.
Rodrigues is being challenged by Gatti’s mother and brother, who claim that he was duped and that Rodrigues should be declared unfit to receive the inheritance.
But they haven’t been able to produce a signed copy of a previous will – drafted in 2007 – that leaves everything to Ida Gatti and Arturo’s young daughter from a previous relationship.
The fortune is valued at $3.4 million but the judge presiding over the case has warned that the money is quickly being eaten up by separate legal disputes in the United States.
Justice Claudine Roy has said she will take the case under advisement and come back with a decision at a later date.
Three days are set aside this week for closing arguments.
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