Former Expos owners sue Selig, Loria

The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The former minority partners of the Montreal Expos sued baseball commissioner Bud Selig and former team owner Jeffrey Loria on Tuesday, accusing them of mail fraud and wire fraud.

The 14 owners filed the lawsuit in federal court in Miami under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and asked that the Expos be placed in trust. They also said that if baseball officials try to move or fold the team, they would ask for an injunction -- which could become another roadblock to Selig's contraction plan.

"From the beginning of Mr. Loria's involvement with the Expos, he and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme that had as its object the destruction of baseball in Montreal, so that Mr. Loria and his co-conspirators could justify relocating the franchise to the United States," the owners said in a 45-page complaint.

They accused Loria and his staff of conduct "that effectively destroyed the economic viability of baseball in Montreal (that) included removing the Expos from local television, subverting well-developed plans for a new baseball stadium in downtown Montreal, purposefully alienating Expos' sponsors and investors, abandoning agreed-upon financial plans for the franchise, and undermining a planned recapitalization of the franchise that would have added new Canadian partners."

The suit contends Loria and Marlins president David Samson conspired with baseball officials to dilute the minority partners' share of the team from 76 percent to 6-to-7 percent and never intended to keep the franchise in Montreal.

Earlier this year, Loria's holding company sold the Expos to a company owned by the other 29 major league teams and purchased the Florida Marlins from John Henry, who became controlling owner of the Boston Red Sox.

The lawsuit asks for compensatory damages, which are tripled, plus $100 million in punitive damages.