A-Rod’s lawyer has had enough.
Tired of waiting for Alex Rodriguez to pay his legal bills, veteran sports attorney David Cornwell and his law firm Gordon & Rees filed a lawsuit in Manhattan on Monday that said the disgraced superstar still owes more than $380,000 for work the firm did on his failed bid to overturn his Biogenesis doping suspension.
The 12-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, says Rodriguez refused to pay the balance of his legal bill at the direction of Desiree Perez, the nightclub manager and ex-con who is one of Jay Z’s top advisers at Roc Nation.
“Most recently, Mr. Rodriguez admitted that his advisers at Roc Nation, most specifically, Desiree Perez, instructed him ‘not to pay the invoices, and to make Gordon & Rees sue’ him,” the complaint says.
Gordon & Rees is also seeking prejudgment interest and attorneys fees that could up the amount to a half-million dollars.
The suit said Gordon & Rees filed a petition for arbitration in February with the State Bar of Georgia — Cornwell is based in Atlanta — demanding payment. Rodriguez, the complaint added, did not respond to the petition.
New York Daily News
“Alex Rodriguez has already paid substantial legal fees to this firm,” said a spokesman for A-Rod, who was banned for the entire 2014 season for his role in the Biogenesis scandal. “There are additional fees being sought from hours that continued to be billed and are the source of the disagreement between the parties. Alex looks forward to swiftly resolving this matter and moving on.”
The lawsuit said Rodriguez included Gordon & Rees in the “legal dream team” he assembled in May 2013 because Cornwell had persuaded an arbitrator to overturn Ryan Braun’s doping suspension in 2012. (Braun was later suspended for 65 games for his role in the Biogenesis scandal.)
Cornwell and his highly regarded firm were hired to lead the team, the suit said, but A-Rod’s top-dollar legal advisers never had the same influence over their wayward client as Perez, the ex-con who was arrested in 1994 for intent to distribute 35 kilos of cocaine and later served as a cooperating witness for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Daily News reported in May that when Rodriguez privately told his advisers that he was ready to cut a deal with MLB and retire, Perez convinced him to continue to fight MLB’s drug charges, and to try to stay on the field. Rodriguez’s alignment with the Perez camp, and lawyers from the firm Reed Smith, appear to have contributed to his issues with Cornwell and Cornwell’s firm.
Spokesmen for Major League Baseball and the Players Association declined comment.
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/alex-rodriguez-sued-lawyer-380k-unpaid-legal-article-1.1866604#ixzz37daCQVXI
