NEWARK, N.J. -- A top boxing promoter testified that he paid IBF founder Robert W. Lee $25,000 for following his organization's own rules on ranking boxers.

The promoter, Dino Duva, testified Tuesday that he paid Lee to ensure that one of his fighters, Fernando Vargas, would get proper treatment and become the top junior middleweight contender in 1998.

Duva, who was with Main Events of Totowa, N.J., at the time, is the second major promoter to testify against Lee at his racketeering and bribery trial.

Vargas eventually became the IBF champion and still holds the 154-pound title.

But in mid-1998, the No. 1 contender spot was open. Duva expected that if Vargas, then ranked No. 5, beat a rated fighter, the IBF would make him No. 1, in accordance with its rules.

The rankings granted by the IBF, as one of boxing's three major sanctioning bodies, play a big role in what fights and prize money a boxer gets.

Duva told a federal jury that then-IBF rankings chairman C. Douglas Beavers told him that it would cost $25,000 to ensure that the IBF followed its own rules.

Vargas beat No. 11 Anthony Stephens in June 1998 and got the No. 1 rating.

Duva, who is testifying with immunity, said Lee later demanded money. In December 1998 they were both in Atlantic City when Vargas defeated Luis Ramon Campas to win the IBF belt.

Duva testified he put $25,000 in a candy bag, stuffing tissue paper on top of the cash, and had the Main Events site coordinator, Dennis Dueltgen, give it to Lee during a breakfast meeting.

Also attending the meeting was Duva's father, trainer Lou Duva.

Neither his father nor Dueltgen knew what was in the bag, Dino Duva said. He said the payoff was a mistake that now threatens his ability to make a living in boxing.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Gerald Krovatin, Duva said relations between Main Events and the IBF soured amid a series of lawsuits the promoters filed against the East Orange-based sanctioning group in the mid-1990s.

They focused on what Main Events believed was unfair treatment of its prime heavyweight, Michael Moorer, by the IBF.

But Duva denied that hard feelings lingered.

"You file a lawsuit, you make a settlement, you get on with life," Duva said.

Beavers, the longtime Virginia boxing commissioner, was granted immunity. His testimony earlier in the trial included 83 audio and videotapes he had the FBI secretly make of conversations with Lee.

Earlier in the trial, Bob Arum, owner of Top Rank Inc., described the machinations and payoffs required for the IBF to sanction the 1995 George Foreman-Axel Schulz fight.

Lee, 66, of Fanwood, and his son, Robert Jr., 38, of Scotch Plains, N.J., are the only defendants on trial. They face multiyear prison terms if convicted of conspiracy, racketeering, fraud and tax charges.

Former IBF championship committee chairman Bill Brennan, 86, of Warsaw, Va., past president of the U.S. Boxing Association, a group that became the IBF, was severed from the trial because of ill health.

The IBF's South American representative, Francisco "Pacho" Fernandez of Colombia, remains at large.

The Lee trial is in its 11th week and is expected to last into August. In the meantime, a court-appointed monitor is overseeing the IBF, and Lee is barred from participating in IBF affairs.