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The affair took another bizarre twist last week, when Smith telephoned newspaper and radio reporters in New York City and Los Angeles to give his version of the story. In a defiant but desperate voice he maintained that he was the "scapegoat" in a pervasive plot that involved 35 Wells Fargo officers in 20 branches of the bank. The amount stolen, he said, was actually between $200 million and $300 million. Smith claimed that when suspicions began to surface at Wells Fargo three weeks ago, a group of bank employees raided his Pacific Palisades home and kidnaped his four-year-old son. They returned the child, the story went, only after Smith promised to take his family and flee the country. Smith said he first went to Switzerland and then returned last week to a secret location in the U.S.
Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Cooley promptly called Smith's charges "preposterous." An extensive investigation, he said, showed that the bank had lost no more than $21 million. But because of the complicated nature of the crime, no one could yet be sure how much money was missing. Bank officials later admitted that the investigation was still under way, and they were not certain that Lewis was the only employee in on the plot.
The alleged leader of the heist, Harold James Smith, is a strapping 6 ft. 2 in. and sports a bushy beard usually complemented by a cowboy hat and gold-rimmed sunglasses. His past is something of a mystery. During the 1960s, he worked in the civil rights movement with Stokely Carmichael. In 1976 he turned up in Los Angeles promoting concerts with stars like Shirley Bassey. His business association with Muhammad Ali began a year later, when Smith sponsored some amateur track meets.
In 1979 Smith joined the professional fight game and suddenly began flaunting great wealth. He carted around flight bags full of cash and paid boxers four or five times as much money as other promoters did. Last May he offered Larry Holmes, the World Boxing Council heavyweight champion, $1.5 million to sign an exclusive contract with MAPS. Holmes says that Smith came into the boxer's office with two Wells Fargo cashier checks for $500,000 each and a bag stuffed with $50 and $100 bills.
Smith enjoyed the trappings of money. He owned homes in fashionable sections of Southern California, like Pacific Palisades, where President Reagan used to live, and Marina del Rey. He also owned a brown Cadillac Seville as well as a $60,000 custom-made Cadillac convertible, an $84,000 cabin cruiser and a Beechcraft plane. When asked where his gold mine was located, Smith sometimes replied that his wife's family was wealthy. On other occasions he mimicked the TV commercials of the Smith Barney investment firm and said, "We make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it."
MAPS, however, did not earn money. It lost heavily. Last December, for example, MAPS paid two welterweights more than $300,000 for a Sacramento bout that generated less than $90,000 in gate receipts. Boxing sources estimate that cumulative MAPS losses could have approached $10 million.