‘Not a soap opera’: A-Rod must face former brother-in-law’s claims in $50 million suit
Alex Rodriguez’s seemingly never-ending beef with his former brother-in-law has taken an even nastier turn.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman ruled last Thursday that the retired baseball player is going to have to address allegations of racketeering and embezzlement newly made against him by Constantine Scurtis.
In an amended complaint to a $50 million suit filed in January, Scurtis, whose sister is A-Rod’s ex wife, accused Rodriguez of criminal activity while they were running a $1 billion real estate business together.
In a blow to the “Shark Tank” star, the judge denied his motion to have Scurtis’ claims dismissed, but did add that “no further amendments will be permitted.”
Rodriguez was married to Cynthia Scurtis from 2002 to 2008. The two split amid rumors of his cheating with Madonna, among others. The ex-slugger has gone on to date such A-listers as Cameron Diaz and Kate Hudson, and is engaged to Jennifer Lopez.
“The new pleading we have filed on Constantine Scurtis’s behalf explains how Alex Rodriguez, formerly a professional baseball player and Mr. Scurtis’s brother-in-law, first cheated on his wife and then cheated Mr. Scurtis out of the proceeds from their wildly profitable real estate venture,” said Scurtis lawyer
Nate Holcomb in the suit.
In court papers reviewed by the Miami Herald, Hanzman says that the former relative’s accusations about A-Rod, 45, being a “cheater” are not germane to the case.
“These allegations of alleged marital infidelities are wholly irrelevant to the question of whether Mr. Scurtis has been wrongfully cut out of the real estate venture(s) formed between himself and Mr Rodriguez. In sum, these scandalous and sensationalized allegations are irrelevant to the issues pled in this commercial dispute. This case will not devolve into a soap opera.”
A refresher on the internecine mess: Back in 2002, the former New York Yankee put up 95 percent of the capital to launch a real estate business, whose operating arm was known as Newport Property Ventures Ltd.. His wife’s brother Scurtis took on the other 5 percent, plus a 3 percent acquisition fee on properties.
But Scurtis’ suit claims that in 2005, Rodriguez had him defer those fees so that Newport’s money could remain liquid, causing the plaintiff to lose out on millions. The Miami native, who is the co-founder of Lynd Acquisition Group, also alleges that Rodriguez took his name off some of the individual LLCs and he was “fraudulently shoved out.”
“Mr. Rodriguez will face a jury on August 2, 2021, to answer claims that he and his co-conspirators engaged in a pattern of racketeering and embezzlement,” Scurtis’ attorney Katherine Eskovitz said in a statement to media.
In addition to this most current suit, Scurtis has filed several unsuccessful ones against Rodriguez over the years. The athlete’s lawyers say his kids’ uncle is trying to damage his reputation and this latest one is “intended to harass” and “publicly humiliate, impugn, and disparage Mr. Rodriguez and others.” The 14-time All Star could face 30 years if convicted.
The Westminster Christian alum has yet to comment on the matter, but on Instagram Monday he posted an inspirational message about his career that hinted at his latest legal troubles, using the game of ping pong as a metaphor.
“No matter how good you think you are, there’s always someone else on the other side of the table trying to prove they’re just as good, or better,” he said. “Even when you take your best shot, you always need to be prepared for what’s next.”
Carlos Saúl Menem, who as Argentina’s president from 1989 to 1999 fostered a striking economic recovery and renewed ties to the United States and Britain, but was later convicted of graft and accused of covering up evidence in a deadly anti-Semitic bombing on his watch, died Sunday in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 90.
His death was confirmed by Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández. According to The Buenos Aires Times, Menem was hospitalized in December with kidney failure and had been put in a medically induced coma.
In a nation of chronic political and economic turmoil with a past punctuated by military juntas, Menem seemed to many of his fellow citizens to be a charismatic strongman like Juan Domingo Perón, the neofascist, postwar dictator. A flamboyant provincial governor, he led a Peronist political movement when he ran for president. But he turned out to be a neoliberal democrat, and something completely different.
He was a Sunni Muslim of Syrian descent in a Roman Catholic land. For a time, he had shoulderlength hair and bushy 19thcentury-style cheek whiskers. He liked ice cream suits and white shoes, kept 20 perfumes on a vanity table, drove racing cars and dated models and movie stars: a throwback to archetypal patriarchs known as caudillos.
Menem, who converted to Catholicism because it was a constitutional requirement for the presidency, assumed office five months early when President Raúl Alfonsín resigned as the long-troubled economy finally collapsed and looters invaded the supermarkets.
It was the worst economic crisis in Argentina’s history. Poverty gripped a quarter of the 32 million people. Inflation was nearly 5,000%. Foreign debt was $60 billion and domestic debt $7 billion. There were power failures, factory closings, widespread layoffs and shortages of everything.
“The only things I can offer my people are work, sacrifice and hope,” Menem said on July 8, 1989, in the first peaceful transfer of power from one constitutionally elected party to another since
1916. “There is no other way to put it. Argentina is broken, devastated, destroyed. This is perhaps our last chance.”
In a remarkable turnaround from a government-dominated economy to free markets, he cut public employment; slashed agency budgets; stabilized the peso by tying its value to the dollar; privatized state industries, utilities, airlines and railroads; cut import duties and drew in torrents of foreign goods and investments; raised tax collections; and began paying back debts.
In a year, Argentina was on its way to recovery. By 1993, inflation was down to single digits, and while unemployment remained high, the economy was one of the developing world’s top performers.
Calling for national reconciliation after years of military dictatorships, he pardoned imprisoned leaders of the junta that had tortured and killed thousands in a “dirty war” on dissidents from 1976 to 1983, as well as guerrilla leaders who fought the regime. He cut military budgets, abolished conscription, crushed a revolt by army officers and, with new generals, undermined military influence on political life.
The moves drew protests in Argentina, where much of the population had supported the juntas and regarded
dissidents as communist subversives. But he won praise abroad, especially in Washington.
“Argentina is assuming its rightful place as a leader in the democratic community of nations,” President George H.W. Bush said in welcoming Menem to the White House in 1991. “Under your leadership, Argentina has become one of the hemisphere’s strongest defenders of democracy, both at home and abroad.”
But terrorist assaults with hidden implications struck Argentina. In 1992, a car bomb killed at least 28 people at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Another car bomb killed 85 more at a Jewish community center in the capital in 1994. Security guards had vanished before both blasts. They were the worst anti-Semitic attacks in Argentina since an infamous 1919 pogrom left hundreds dead, yet investigations were desultory and the crimes remained unsolved during Menem’s tenure.
After arranging a constitutional change to allow himself another term, Menem won reelection. His second term was marked by a series of setbacks, with rising interest rates, trade deficits, crime and poverty, and with falling productivity, consumer confidence, imports and foreign investments. National debts soared to $139 billion.
Menem was dogged by accusations of corruption from his opponents. He controlled the police and courts and was not charged. But after leaving office, he was accused of embezzling $60 million in prison construction deals; of extorting $10 million in an arms-smuggling scheme that sent war materiel to Ecuador and Croatia, in violation of international embargoes; and of evading taxes and hiding millions in Swiss bank accounts. He was held under house arrest for nearly six months in 2001 in the arms-smuggling case.
In 2002, The New York Times, quoting sealed testimony by an Iranian intelligence defector, reported that Iran had masterminded the Jewish community center bombing, and had paid Menem $10 million to conceal its involvement. The testimony supported long-held suspicions of Iranian complicity and Argentine investigative misconduct in the bombings.
Carlos Saúl Menem was born in Anillaco, Argentina, on July 2, 1930, one of four sons of Saúl and Mohibe Akil Menem, who were Syrian immigrants. His father, a merchant, sent all his sons to college. Carlos Saúl Menem attended the National University of Córdoba, in Argentina’s second city. He earned a law degree in 1955 and became a passionate Peronist.
In 1966, he married Zulema Yoma. They had two children, Zulema Menem and Carlos Saúl Jr., and were divorced in 1991. In 2001, he married Cecilia Bolocco. They had a son, Máximo, and were divorced in 2011. Carlos Saúl Jr. was killed in a helicopter crash in 1995.
Besides his daughter, Zulema Menem, and his son Máximo Menem Bolocco, survivors include another son, Carlos Nair Menem and a brother, Eduardo.