McNown Takes FBI Advice, Severs His Ties With Felon

Cade McNown, last season’s starting quarterback at UCLA, said Monday that because of an FBI investigation, he has stopped speaking with a reputed mobster who befriended him.

McNown said he has not spoken with Dominic Montemarano, 60, a convicted felon also known as Donny Shacks, since being questioned last month by FBI agents about their relationship--an investigation that cleared McNown and three other UCLA football players of wrongdoing.

Speaking after a 30-minute workout conducted at UCLA’s practice field for NFL executives and scouts, McNown, a projected first-round draft pick, also said he didn’t believe his friendship with Montemarano would affect his status in the draft April 17-18.

McNown said that agents told him Feb. 27 to “stop associating with the guy,” so he did. He recalled the conversation with Montemarano this way: “I just went over and said, ‘Hey, look’--and before I even said [more], he said, ‘You can’t see me anymore.’ He didn’t want anything bad to ever happen to me.”

Montemarano knew that “people [had] started asking questions,” McNown added. He said Montemarano told him, “ ‘I don’t want you to get in any trouble. We can’t talk anymore. That’s the way it’s got to be.’ ”

McNown said his association with Montemarano “was a very innocent thing,” declining to elaborate before being escorted away by UCLA football Coach Bob Toledo.

The FBI issued a statement March 11 saying it had investigated UCLA’s football team after learning of allegations of point-shaving but had cleared Bruin players and the university because agents found “no corroborating information.”

The FBI made its statement after interviewing McNown and the other players. The identities of the three others have not been made public.

The FBI has not explained the source or nature of the point-shaving allegations.

Montemarano could not be located Monday for comment.

The Bruins won their first 10 games and the Pacific 10 Conference title but lost Dec. 5 at Miami, 49-45, and Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl game to Wisconsin, 38-31.

McNown passed for 513 yards against Miami, a school record.

McNown issued a statement March 10 saying he had voluntarily taken a lie-detector test, passed and was then assured there would be no further inquiry.

Montemarano, identified in mid-1980s court documents as a captain in New York’s Colombo crime family, was convicted in 1987 of racketeering charges in federal court in New York. He was released from prison in 1996.

McNown and the others considered him a friend, who, for instance, invited players to his house to watch Monday night NFL games.

The New York Daily News reported Sunday that other former UCLA quarterbacks--among them Dallas Cowboy star Troy Aikman and Rick Neuheisel, the recently hired Washington football coach--have attended parties thrown by Montemarano. It said neither had been aware of Montemarano’s reputation.