MONTREAL -- Hours after appointing a Montreal boxer as his "special adviser" heading into the fall municipal election, Denis Coderre swiftly let him go after learning he was facing serious allegations, including sexual assault. "I am stunned," the former mayor said, in a statement released Friday afternoon, about the reported allegations against Ali Nestor. "I know that charges have not been laid, but Ali Nestor needs to step down from our team. In all cases, justice must take its course," Coderre wrote. Earlier in the day, Coderre posed for a photo op with Nestor, who runs a gym in St-Michel and is the founder of a youth organization.