Off the ropes-No
thanks to Don King
DON
KING IS STILL doing nothing to help his teenage granddaughter
Nathalie King out of desperate financial straits - but another
boxing figure will.
ESPN
analyst Teddy Atlas contacted the Daily News this week to make a
donation to the 14-year old city high schooler and her mother
through his non-profit organization, the Dr. Theodore A. Atlas
Foundation.
The
News reported last Sunday that Nathalie's father, Eric King, a
notorious deadbeat dad, is again 15 months behind in
child-support payments.
"We
are grateful to Teddy and his organization," said Nathalie's
mom, Ana CarrilGrumberg. "Con Edison told us they are going to
turn off the electricity on Monday, and we are behind in rent."
"Their
situation is ridiculous," Atlas told The News from Houston after
doing commentary on the ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights."
"There
are so many people suffering out there with nobody there to help
them. But here, there's somebody to help them, and he doesn't."
Don
King has long been aware that Eric, his son, left Nathalie in
poverty after years of non-payment of child support.
The
sorry scion was arrested in Texas in 2001. A New York judge
ordered him to pay a paltry $312 a month the next year which he
failed to come up with after October 2003.
The
second offense is a felony, yet the city's Child Support
Enforcement Agency has done nothing about the case. Neither has
Don King, who told us four years ago he'd be willing to embrace
the child.
The
boxing promoter's fortune has been estimated at $100 million,
though he boasts a worth five times that. Last week he was seen
dripping with belly-length diamond and sapphire bling at the
presidential inaugural festival.
Just
one of Don King's necklaces could spare Nathalie, a talented
dance and voice student at New York's High School of Art and
Design, from wondering where her next meal is coming from.
But
Don King has left that to people like Atlas, who was former
heavyweight champ Mike Tyson's first trainer and who worked with
King on the way to guiding Michael Mooner to the World Boxing
Organization heavyweight title twice in the 90's.
"We
kept a good light on everything [Don King] did then," Atlas said.
The
Staten Island native set up the foundation to honor his father,
Dr. Theodore Atlas, who "made 10 to 15 house calls a day until
he was 80, charging $5 a visit, and giving the medicine for
free," Atlas said.
The
nonprofit has no administrative costs, thanks to dedicated
volunteers like Kathy Zito, who presented the donation to mother
and daughter yesterday.
Zito
also arranged for another foundation volunteer, attorney David
Berlin, to represent them in their battle for child support. She
will keep working with Nathalie and her mother as they push the
city to enforce the child support law.
Atlas
said, "We've been around for eight years and we've given away $1
million. We give away every dollar of our donation to families
in need, for the people who fall through the cracks."
"And
hopefully, before they lose the last thing they have - pride."
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