Legal News

Pre-Gaming a Possible Perjury Charge Against Sammy Sosa

By Chris Herring

Sammy Sosa’s hopes for getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame may have largely vanished yesterday when a report in The New York Times claimed that the former Cubs slugger tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

Whether Sosa will face legal trouble for the test is unclear. But if he does, it could likely come in the form of a perjury charge. On March 17, 2005, Sosa told the House Government Reform Committee:

I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean.

So, in light of the news on his 2003 result, if feds decided to pitch him a perjury charge, how might Sosa react?

A Sports Illustrated piece, written by Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann, lays out Sosa’s possible legal options going forward, including one that strikes us as a bit of a Hail Mary suggestion.

His options, according to McCann:

1) Hope that the House takes too long to take action. If it takes the committee beyond March 17, 2010 — exactly nine months away — the federal statute of limitations would likely bar Sosa from being prosecuted. If the committee takes longer than that to bring a case, it would be much harder to do.

2) Use the Bonds argument. Admit to taking performance enhancers, but say you didn’t know what they were at the time. That way, the testimony wasn’t necessarily a lie.

3) Here’s the Hail Mary: Use your Dominican heritage and argue that you didn’t know English well enough to correctly respond to the questions you were asked.

Yeah, we weren’t too sure about No. 3 , either.

In another legal tidbit to come out of the Sosa story, a Chicago Tribune columnist said baseball commissioner Bud Selig believes someone is unlawfully outing players like Sosa who tested positive for performance enhancers in 2003.

Wrote the Tribune’s Phil Rogers about a conversation on Tuesday with Selig:

He was angry. He wanted to vent. But he would not agree to be interviewed on the record. So I moved on.

This much was clear: He and others at Major League Baseball believe a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s office — past or present — ignored a court seal to whisper Sosa’s name to Michael S. Schmidt, the New York Times reporter who broke the story. They see the leaks as unethical and unlawful.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).