ARod paid his cousin $1 million to stay quiet

Alex Rodriguez will be back on the diamond next MLB season. Rodriguez served a season-long ban for performance enhancing drugs. Now information has surfaced that he paid his cousin Yuri Sucart $700,000 for his silence, and will pay three more payments which will net Yuri $1 million.

According to the NY Daily News, Sucart threatened to expose Rodriguez doping secrets unless he gave him money; the court papers were filed last week in a District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

In 2012, Sucart’s former attorney had demanded $5 million and an estate for Sucart and his wife. A-Rod had already given a semi-confession of steroid use in 2009 where he stated in a press conference that he used steroids given to him by his cousin from 2001-2003.

Sucart is a defendant in the Biogenesis federal case and pleaded not guilty.

A-Rod received the letter demanding money just as the MLB investigations became more serious; he didn’t start paying his cousin until two months before MLB commissioner Bud Selig suspended him for 162 games plus the postseason.

Sucart’s attorney wrote this referencing A-Rod’s refusals to continue to pay Sucart for his past services:

“Due to your use of performance-enhancing substances, Yuri was wrongly blamed. Nonetheless, Yuri remains able and willing to continue to serve you and your needs as a personal assistant, within the restrictions that baseball has placed upon him. He does not wish to and does not intend to ever speak to the MLB unless he is subpoenaed.”

The letter continued:

“Given the sudden breach of your longstanding agreement with Yuri, he wishes to propose that you provide to him payment for his past services rendered, and for the loyalty he has shown you. Therefore, Yuri requests that you now pay him for the past services rendered and to fulfill your promise to support he and his family for life. That sum is $5 million and a life estate for he and his wife in the house (free and clear of any liens or mortgages) where he is currently living.”