They say blood is thicker than water but Alex Rodriguez was allegedly blackmailed by his own cousin in order to keep quiet about his performance enhancing drug use.
According to the NYDailyNews, the disgraced New York Yankee shelled out nearly one million dollars to “Cousin Yuri Sucart” or his year-long ban may have been a permanent one.
Alex Rodriguez’s infamous “Cousin Yuri Sucart” threatened to expose the Yankee superstar’s doping secrets unless the scandal-ridden slugger coughed up “enormous sums of money,” according to court papers filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Rodriguez caved, entering into a confidential settlement with Sucart on June 5, 2013, agreeing to pay Sucart one $700,000 payment for his silence, in addition to three more payments made to Sucart that totalled $200,000.
In a Dec. 18, 2012 letter, Sucart’s former attorney, Jeffrey Sonn, had demanded $5 million and a “life estate” for Sucart and his wife, according to the court papers.
By then, Rodriguez was already embroiled in Major League Baseball’s investigation into the Biogenesis anti-aging clinic scandal that would result in the suspension of 14 players, including Rodriguez. A-Rod had previously made a limited confession of steroid use in 2009 when he said in a press conference that he had decided to use steroids provided by his cousin from 2001 to 2003.
In one telling passage in the 2012 letter written by Sonn, the lawyer wrote: “Yuri, even after he was accused of being a steroid mule for you, kept your confidences of all your activities while you played for the Rangers and the Yankees.”
Sucart is also a defendant in the ongoing Biogenesis case where the clinic’s owner, Anthony Bosch, has already pleaded guilty and is waiting to be sentenced.
Time will only tell if A-Rod pissed a million bucks down the drain to delay the inevitable.
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Photo: WENN.com
