Antonio Margarito and his trainer are temporarily suspended

Boxer Antonio Margarito was temporarily suspended along with his trainer Javier Capetillo on Wednesday after the California State Athletic Commission announced it found a “foreign substance” in the boxer’s hand wraps before his Saturday night loss to Shane Mosley at Staples Center.

Margarito and Capetillo have been ordered to appear at a hearing on Feb. 10 in Van Nuys.

In the hour before his first title defense as World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion, Margarito (37-6) was stopped from putting on his gloves when Mosley’s trainer Nazim Richardson told state officials he believed the taping was excessively thick. When the tape was unwrapped, Richardson pointed out two pads inside one of the hand wraps that appeared wet and laced with “flecks” of a substance that appeared to be like the cast-making substance “Plaster of Paris,” Mosley’s attorney Judd Burstein said Saturday night.

The contents of the hand wraps were taken by a state athletic commission official and inspected this week in Sacramento. The foreign substance was suspicious enough to merit the suspension, state spokesman Luis Farias said, but added an identification of the material “is all pending.”

Bob Arum, Margarito’s promoter, said he had retained an attorney for the boxer. “We’re absolutely confident he’s going to be exonerated,” Arum told The Times.

A lengthy suspension of Margarito would be obeyed in all other states, in accordance with the Professional Boxing Safety Act, which was amended to account for unsportsmanlike conduct suspensions after heavyweight Mike Tyson bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear in a 1997 bout.

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Times Staff Writer Kevin Baxter contributed to this report.

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