Leslie John Ralston (born November 13, 1980, in Buffalo, New York) is an American boxer.
Known as "Lightning" Les, Ralston began his professional career in 2002, and lost to Sergio Mora in 2004 before Mora's appearance on The Contender.
On May 4, 2012, police report that Leslie Ralston struck Zachary Zorechak, 18, and Brittany Cain, 17, as they crossed the street in front of police headquarters in the City of Tonawanda, New York. Ralston did not stop, even though one of the victims clung to the hood of his car for nearly 200 feet. Ralston was charged with second-degree assault, a felony, as well as three counts of leaving the scene of an injury accident and third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, for driving with a suspended license.
On December 28, 2012, WIVB news reports that Ralston was also sentenced to one year in jail after pleading guilty to Grand Larceny, 3rd Degree. He was guilty of defrauding an 85-year-old woman out of $18,450 for charging her for unneeded roof repairs.
WIVB also reports that Ralston’s older brother, Joseph Ralston, is currently serving time over another fraudulent home improvement scheme. Ralston’s father was convicted of home improvement schemes dating back to the 1980s.
He will be one of the featured boxers on the 3rd season of the boxing reality TV series, The Contender, The Contender (season 3), premiering September 4, 2007, on ESPN.
 | This biographical article related to an American boxer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Christy Renea Martin is an American former professional boxer. Competing from 1989 to 2012, she held the WBC female super welterweight title in 2009. Martin was the first female boxer elected to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in 2016, and was also elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020, which was the first year that women were on the ballot. In 2010, her husband made an attempt to kill her. He was subsequently found guilty of attempted second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was an American middleweight boxer, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder, until released following a petition of habeas corpus after almost 20 years in prison.
James Butler Jr. is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2004. He challenged once for the IBF super middleweight title in 2000, but he is best known for his infamous bout on November 23, 2001. Butler brutally sucker punched Richard Grant after losing the fight and served four months at Rikers Island. In 2004, Butler was arrested for the murder of Sam Kellerman and was sentenced to 29 years and four months in prison.
James Arthur Hogue is an American impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan.
Peter Manfredo Jr. is a former American professional boxer and former IBO middleweight champion. He has challenged twice for upper-level world titles, at middleweight and super middleweight, as well as having won the NABO, IBU and European Boxing Association (EBA) light middleweight titles.
Bruce Samuel Seldon is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 1996, and 2004 to 2009. He held the WBA heavyweight title from 1995 to 1996, most notably losing to Mike Tyson via knockout in his second defense.
Vernon Forrest was an American professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBC, IBF, Ring magazine and lineal welterweight between 2002 and 2003, and the WBC super welterweight title twice between 2007 and 2009. In 2002, Forrest was named Fighter of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America.
The Hamdania incident refers to the alleged kidnapping and subsequent murder of an Iraqi man by United States Marines on April 26, 2006, in Al Hamdania, a small village west of Baghdad near Abu Ghraib. An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service resulted in charges of murder, kidnapping, housebreaking, larceny, Obstruction of Justice and conspiracy associated with the alleged coverup of the incident. They were forced to drop many charges on the defendants. The defendants are seven Marines and a Navy Corpsman. As of February 2007, five of the defendants have negotiated pleas to lesser charges of kidnapping and conspiracy, or less, and have agreed to testify in these trials. Additional Marines from the same battalion faced lesser charges of assault related to the use of physical force during interrogations of suspected insurgents. Those charges were dropped.
Paul John "Frankie" Carbo was an Italian-American New York City Mafia soldier in the Lucchese crime family who operated as a gunman with Murder, Inc. before transitioning into one of the most powerful promoters in professional boxing.
Crystal Gail Mangum is an American former exotic dancer from Durham, North Carolina, United States, who has been incarcerated for murder since 2013. In 2006, she came to attention in national news reports for having made false allegations of rape against lacrosse players in the Duke lacrosse case. Mangum's work in the sex industry as a black woman while the young men she accused were white generated extensive media interest and academic debate about race, class, gender, and the politicization of the justice system.
Sakio Bika versus Jaidon Codrington was a super middleweight boxing contest that was notable for being the final of the 3rd season of the boxing reality show 'The Contender' broadcast on ESPN. The fight took place in Boston's TD Banknorth Garden on November 6, 2007, in front of 6,000 people and offered a prize fund for the winner of $750,000.
Lawrence B. "Larry" Salander is a former New York City art dealer and artist. His company, the Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, was cited by the Robb Report in 2003 as the best gallery in the world. By late 2007, Salander had been sued by numerous customers and business partners who claimed that Salander and his company had defrauded them.
The murder of Yeardley Love took place on May 3, 2010, in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. Love, a University of Virginia (UVA) women's lacrosse student-athlete, was found unresponsive in her Charlottesville apartment, and later that day, UVA men's lacrosse player George Wesley Huguely V was arrested by Charlottesville police. Huguely was tried and found guilty of Love's murder, receiving a 23-year prison sentence.
Anna Ayala is an American fraudster and convicted felon. She is most known for bringing a fraudulent tort lawsuit against a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose, California in 2005. Ayala’s claims cost the chain more than US $21 million in lost revenue. This led to a felony charge of attempted grand larceny against her, to which Ayala pleaded guilty in September 2005. She was sentenced to nine years in prison on January 18, 2006 and served four years. In 2013, she received another prison sentence for an unrelated incident regarding filing a false police report and felony firearm possession.
Brian Kim is an American former hedge fund manager. He founded the now-defunct Liquid Capital Management LLC, which focused on futures trading.
The killing of William L. Chapman II, a black 18-year-old, occurred on April 22, 2015, in Portsmouth, Virginia, when Chapman was shot and killed in a Wal-Mart parking lot by Portsmouth Police Officer Stephen D. Rankin. Rankin had been responding to a report of suspected shoplifting and engaged in a physical struggle with Chapman, who instigated the altercation while trying to arrest him. The shooting occurred approximately four years after the killing of Kirill Denyakin, who died after being shot by Rankin in 2011.
Frank Cotroni was an Italian-Canadian crime boss of the Cotroni crime family in Montreal, Quebec.
Matthew Joseph Troy, Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. He was a member of the New York City Council from the New York City borough of Queens from 1964 to 1977 and the leader of the Queens Democratic Party from 1971 to 1974. He pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in 1976 and was convicted of grand larceny in 1979.
Derek Michael Chauvin is an American former police officer who murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Chauvin was a member of the Minneapolis Police Department from 2001 to 2020.