Lazaro Collazo vs. Alex Rodriguez & Co.
You wouldn’t know if from watching Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN or following him on any one of his social media accounts, but Alex Rodriguez is currently entrenched in a legal battle with a former client of Biogenesis.
In 2015, the former University of Miami pitching coach Lazaro Collazo sued A-Rod, his business associate Jose (Pepe) Gómez, and a private investigation firm called “Guidepost Solutions” in the Miami-Dade County Courts. Currently, the case remains “open” per the Miami-Dade County Civil, Family and Probate Courts Online System.
According to the complaint(s), Collazo seeks damages form the aforementioned parties for several reasons.
- Common law invasion of privacy: Biogenesis records concerning Collazo were disseminated without Collazo’s consent to “attorneys, investigators, the United States’ Attorney’s Office, and the DEA.”
- Negligence: defendants failed to get written consent from Collazo and other clients of Biogenesis when obtaining confidential medical records. Defendants also failed to get a lawful subpoena.
- Intentional infliction of emotional distress: defendants thrust Collazo into the spotlight, thereby “intruding into his private affairs, by purchasing, obtaining, discussing, and otherwise disseminating his confidential medical records without consent or by subpoena.”
All of this, according to the complaint, with the intent to “avoid and/or minimize the damage to A-Rod’s professional reputation” in the Biogenesis scandal.
We can’t say with 100% certainty whether A-Rod did, in fact, purchase Biogenesis records from whistleblower Porter Fischer.
Exhibits within the complaint indicate that “Pepe” Gomez acted on his own in obtaining the documents from Fischer. However, Porter Fischer maintains that he gave copies to Pete Carbone. Another set of copies were later stolen from Fischer’s car.
What we do know is that MLB definitely purchased copies, raising the question: why didn’t Collazo sue MLB?