SUIT: AGENTS ADDED JUICE
Alleges ACES helped players obtain dope
AP
Juan Carlos Nunez, who worked for the powerful Brooklyn-based ACES sports agency before he was caught up in two doping scandals — the 2012 Melky Cabrera fake website scam and the Biogenesis performance-enhancing drug case — detonated spring training when he filed a bombshell complaint in New York State Supreme Court Monday, naming ACES and sports agent brothers Seth and Sam Levinson as defendants.
The explosive complaint alleges that after Nunez signed a contract to work for ACES beginning in 2006, he “was told that he had to do ‘whatever it took’ to recruit and retain players as ACES clients.”
“Plaintiff came to learn that ‘whatever it took’ meant violating criminal law in addition to the rules of Major League Baseball, as well as the Players’ Union, including by making under-the-table payments to players and their friends and family, helping players obtain and use performance-enhancing drugs to get bigger contracts and ultimately engaging in an elaborate coverup to hide the misconduct from MLB and its Players’ Union,” the complaint reads.
In August 2012, the Daily News first reported about Nunez being in cahoots with former Yankee Melky Cabrera — an ACES client — to develop a phony website for a product that Cabrera claimed caused him to test positive for elevated levels of synthetic testosterone. Cabrera, who played for the Giants that season and was having an MVP-caliber season, ended up serving a 50-game doping suspension. Nunez was banned by Major League Baseball from dealing with its 30 clubs.
The Levinsons denied any involvement with the fake website then, and they said Nunez was a “paid consultant.” The union said it would censure the Levinsons after an investigation into the matter,