As embattled Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun enters the 2014 season looking for a clean slate while returning from his 65-game Biogenesis suspension in 2013, a Milwaukee judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against the disgraced baseball player stemming from events in 2011 after a one-time friend of the slugger sued Braun for disparaging him and not paying him after he aided him in fighting a failed drug test.
USA Today Sports reports that Braun, who was the first of 14 victims to fall in Major League Baseball's investigation of the now-defunct Florida-based Biogenesis clinic founded by Anthony Bosch and accused of selling performance enhancing drugs to players, was allegedly aided by his friend when he failed a urine test in 2011 and defamed the character in an attack on the urine sample collector.
Braun eventually got the 2011 ban overturned before getting caught up in the Biogenesis suspensions two years later. The 2011 National League Most Valuable Player was allegedly aided by friend Ralph Sasson, who filed a lawsuit against him in August that was upheld by a judge in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
According to the Associated Press, Sasson said that Braun's agent hired him in November of 2011 to do legal research to help clear Braun's name after he tested positive for elevated testosterone in October of that year. The report then states that Braun asked Sasson to investigate Dino Laurenzi Jr., the man who collected the urine sample, and to prank call two journalists working on a story about the failed test.
Sasson said that Braun and his lawyer Onesimo Balelo paid him the agreed upon $7,000 for his work reluctantly and that Braun later lied about why his relationship with Sasson soured, according to the report.
Braun's attorney Howard Weitzman denied the claims and Braun and his agents, Creative Artists Agency, asked Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul Van Grunsven to dismiss the lawsuit. While Van Grunsven dismissed seven of the 12 counts, according to AP, he upheld the accusations of libel, negligent infliction of emotional distress and fraudulent misrepresentation. Three of the accounts involve Braun while two involve his agents.
Sasson discussed the outcome of the judge's decision afterwards.
"While I am pleased with yesterday's outcome, it is merely a first step in the long and arduous process of holding Ryan Braun, Nez Balelo and Creative Artists Agency accountable for their fraudulent actions and flagrant misconduct," he said in a statement per AP. "As such, my primary goal at this juncture is to avoid any procedural missteps and take this matter to trial."
Braun's fresh start is already hitting a bumpy patch, three months before the season even begins.
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