DATE: Saturday, November 15, 1997           TAG: 9711150396

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

WHITAKER'S LAWYER SEEKS SECOND TEST AFTER THE ``B'' SAMPLE IS EXAMINED, HE'LL SEEK A HEARING ON THE FIGHTER'S SUSPENSION.

Pernell ``Sweetpea'' Whitaker's lawyer said Friday that he received a document he was awaiting regarding the boxer's positive drug test, but he said it lacks much of the detail he wanted.

Pat English said he will request on Monday that a second urine sample be tested, and after that is done he will request a hearing with the Mashantucket Pequot Gaming and Athletic Commission. That commission regulated the Oct. 17 fight between Whitaker and Andrei Pestriaev at Foxwoods Resort Casino and notified Whitaker's camp last week that he had tested positive for cocaine.

English said the next step is to have the ``B'' sample tested. When a specimen is collected, it is split and one portion is sent to a lab and the other portion is retained by the commission.

English had been awaiting chain-of-custody documents from the Mashantucket Pequot Commission. The chain of custody details who had possession of the sample from the time it was taken until it reached the lab and other specifics of storage, transportation and testing.

The document is designed to verify that the specimen and results are correctly matched to the person who gave the specimen, and that the specimen is not altered or tampered with.

English said he did not get any such documentation in the one page that was faxed to him.

``I got something that shows Pernell Whitaker (urinated) in a bottle,'' English said. ``It's not what I call a chain-of-custody document. It's not what I expected, and I'm very disappointed. . . . If this is all they've got, they don't have a chain-of-custody document.''

Whitaker was suspended for 30 days pending a hearing. Arthur Henick, a spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, said Friday that the suspension is pending a hearing. If neither Whitaker nor his representative requested a hearing, Henick said, the suspension would continue indefinitely.

Henick said that other punishment could be meted out at the hearing, including an extended period of suspension, a fine, revocation of license, Whitaker's victory by decision could be overturned or the fight declared void. Henick said the hearing would be at Foxwoods, probably within a week of the request for one.

Whitaker has denied using cocaine or any drug that would show up on the banned-substance list.

English said he would fight the validity of a positive test through all possible appeals. After the hearing could come an appeal to the Mashantucket Pequot commissioner, and then an appeal to an association of state boxing commissioners. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Pernell ``Sweetpea'' Whitaker was suspended after testing positive

for cocaine last month in Connecticut.

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