Traffickers jammed
Bosch, cousin Yuri arrested, but A-Rod likely in the clear
LET’S hope the kids out there saw all of the Biogenesis arrests Tuesday and took to heart the most impressive lesson of all:
Associating with Alex Rodriguez doesn’t pay.
Kidding, sort of. Biogenesis founder Anthony Bosch, the man whose testimony led to Rodriguez’s season-long suspension by Major League Baseball, and A-Rod’s notorious cousin Yuri Sucart were among the seven Biogenesis people arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Bosch, 50, pled guilty to the charge of conspiring to distribute a Schedule III controlled substance (testosterone) and is facing a jail sentence of up to 10 years, though he’s expected to receive a far less harsh punishment.
Sucart, 52, faces five counts of distribution of testosterone; each one carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Specifically, authorities believe Sucart helped recruit major-league players (including A-Rod) to Bosch and his illegal performance-enhancing drugs and also helped run an illegal PED distribution ring to teenagers in the Dominican Republic. Sucart and A-Rod parted ways about three years ago, after Sucart had worked nearly 20 years as his assistant.
The others arrested were Carlos Acevedo, a business partner of Bosch’s; Jorge (Ugi) Velasquez, who allegedly helped A-Rod procure illegal PEDs and then allegedly participated in A-Rod’s attempt to obstruct MLB’s investigation; Juan Nunez, who worked with the well-known agents Sam and Seth Levinson; Christopher Engroba; and Lazer Collazo, who used to be the University of Miami pitching coach.
So what does all this mean? It means A-Rod, for one, is very likely in the clear. While DEA Special Agent Mark Trouville said in a news conference, “This investigation is not over,” A-Rod and his fellow outed Biogenesis clients are not expected to be indicted. Multiple sources said all of the Biogen- esis players, including Rodriguez, were cooperative with federal officials in expediting these arrests. The focus here clearly has been on the dealers, not the users.
“At the end of the day, Alex was not charged with a crime,” A-Rod’s attorney Joseph Tacopina said Tuesday.
If anyone has reason to be nervous, it’s illegal PED-using players who have not yet been exposed but who could be. ESPN’s T.J. Quinn reported Tuesday investigators discovered names of more MLB playe rs i nvo lve d with Biogenesis, and the names ultimately would be revealed. That could lead to another trail of suspensions, on top of last year’s earth-rattling 14. Fittingly, Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of MLB’s announcement of massive suspensions, including 211 games for A-Rod that the controversial slugger reduced to all of 2014 with his appeal.
That means it’s been nearly a year, too, since the fiery Tacopina entered the baseball world — he started publicly advocating for A-Rod in mid-August — and while he proved unable to back up some bold, early claims about MLB and the Yankees, Tuesday’s events validated his longtime prediction both Bosch and Sucart would wind up in big trouble.
“It appears the perpetual smirk has been wiped off of Tony Bosch’s face today,” Tacopina said.
MLB off icials faced a choice in the spring of 2013, when they cornered Bosch: They could cut a deal with him and bust the many players whose names already had been publicized, or, deciding that Bosch was just too sleazy to take on as an ally, they could let him go and therefore let the players go
Few would argue they made the wrong choice by welcoming Bosch aboard and using his evidence to impose serious discipline on 14 players. Now, however, comes the trade-off: As they vowed to Bosch in their initial agreement, baseball officials must reach out to law-enforcement off icials (if they haven’t already) and vouch for the good name of a guy who distributed lllegal PEDs to teenagers. It’s poor optics for MLB, although nowhere as poor as the alternate cenario of A-Rod and company scaping scot-free. Sl owly, meanwhile, A-Rod checks off boxes in Project Comeback as he aims toward a return to thhe Yankees next year and beyond; he is due $61 million from 2015 thhrough 2017. He dropped all three of his lawsuits, extending olive branches to MLB, the Yankees and hhe Players Association. He has stayed remarkably quiet. There has been communication between his advisers and MLB folks.
These arrests, too, further turn the page by reminding us who the real villains are in a drug ring. And if more names emerge, it would exhaust the pointing fingers of he moralistic finger-pointers, so crowded would the list be of baseball players who broke bad.
Tuesday marked another bad day for some people who worked closely with A-Rod. For A-Rod himself, though, it could have been far worse.