A week after being sued a third time by his team’s minority owners, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg is publicly pushing back, with the franchise calling the “relentless campaign” against him “baseless” and “desperate.”
In a rare statement on the suits released Friday, the team said the latest suit “contains numerous allegations that the plaintiffs know are false.” The suit, the team said, amounted to “attempted interference in the business operations of the team.”
The suit, filed June 27 in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, accuses Sternberg of taking “fraudulent” control of the team by “wrongfully and surreptitiously” transferring legal ownership to a company he owns without the knowledge of five minority partners, who collectively own less than 10% of the team. It followed similar suits in May 2021 and this February that alleged Sternberg was squeezing his partners out of profits and withholding documents key to a review of the team’s finances.
“These intentionally false claims are designed to harm the Rays organization at a time when we are actively engaged in efforts to build a new ballpark in Tampa Bay,” the statement read. “The allegation that a simple and commonplace corporate reorganization stripped the limited partners of the value of their investments and their rights and protections is patently false, and the limited partners know that.”
The team said the ownership restructuring was approved by the team’s lenders and Major League Baseball and did not affect...
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