A Boston Police detective and a manager at the Russell Auditorium say a man stabbed repeatedly outside the Talbot Avenue facility on May 7 was apparently attacked in revenge for a rape for which he was convicted about five years ago.

When police found the man, his blood all over his apartment early that morning, he told them he'd been "talking to a girl" when "a group of males surrounded and attacked him," Sgt Det. John Fitzgerald of District B-3 told the Boston Licensing Board at a hearing Tuesday morning.

But according to Carver Grand Lodge manager Richard Felton, what happened was that the man entered the auditorium that night and was spotted by the mother of a girl he'd been convicted of raping several years earlier. She then "made several phone calls" to bring in help to take care of him, Felton said.

Several men drove down and waited for him outside the club and then, Felton said, stabbed him. Fitzgerald said the man went to the hospital with stab wounds in his stomach, lower back and buttocks.

Fitzgerald said the man told police he didn't realize he'd been stabbed until he got home; the detective added police found the man's car with blood on the driver's seat.

The board has to decide whether the auditorium could have prevented the stabbing and, if so, what action, if any, to take. The board considers the case on Thursday.

Felton said the auditorium has a strong security presence, but said "we don't know what happens outside, on the street and asked the board to take that into account.

To try to minimize trouble coming into the auditorium from the street, though, he added that he now pays city street workers to work as details at the door, looking over incoming patrons to alert auditorium doormen to the ones who might be potentially trouble-making gang members and so barred from entrance. However, he said the street workers were not on duty that night.