MLB Investigation In Question As Arrest Made In Theft Of Biogenesis Documents
BOCA RATON (CBSMiami) – While New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez awaits his fate from an arbitrator, the case surrounding the documents that implicated A-Rod in the usage of performance-enhancing drugs at the Coral Gables-based Biogenesis clinic took another turn Thursday.
Boca Raton Police arrested Reginald St. Fleur, 20, and on a charge of burglary while armed with a firearm for allegedly stealing a gun, cash, gym clothes, electronics and documents from the car of Porter Fischer.
Fischer formerly worked at Biogenesis and was the whistleblower who gave the documents of alleged PED use by multiple Major League Baseball players to the Miami New Times earlier this year. The documents led to multiple suspensions of star players, including A-Rod for more than 200 games.
According to Boca Raton Police, DNA test on blood recovered from the car matched St. Fleur. The 20-year-old worked at Boca Tanning and Fischer's car was parked in the rear lot of Boca Tanning when it was burglarized.
Boca Police said when they asked St. Fleur about the incident, he said he works for Boca Tanning for 4 years and did not know about the burglary and didn't know Fischer. Post-Miranda, St. Fleur continued to deny knowing Fischer or being near the car.
When Boca Police contacted Fischer, he said he had spoken to St. Fleur on several occasions and they would say "hi" all the time and "fist bump" when they met one another.
The documents that were stolen from Fischer, allegedly by St. Fleur, were eventually sold to Major League Baseball by Gary Jones. Fischer met Jones at Boca Tanning on March 24th, which is when the documents were stolen from Fischer's car.
What happened next is unknown, but Jones later acknowledged he had obtained stolen property from Fischer's car. Jones made the admission in an affidavit supporting A-Rod's appeal of his suspension. According to Deadspin.com, Jones' car was also broken into at the same time as Fischer's, but Jones didn't file a police report.
According to ESPN's Outside the Lines, MLB obtained the documents at two different times from 54-year-old Gary Jones. In March, MLB's Department of Investigations gave Jones $100,000 for four computer flash drives with documents on them.
The second set of documents was actually intended to go to the Florida Health Department for its investigation of Biogenesis before it was stolen from the car, allegedly by St. Fleur. Then, Jones made another $25,000 for the second set of files.
Major League Baseball said it didn't know the documents were stolen. But, an outside MLB investigator reportedly contacted Boca Raton Police about the car break-in on April 12, a few days before the second payment was made for the rest of the documents, according to Outside the Lines.
MLB officials believe that because Fischer couldn't sell the documents himself, he staged the break-in and shared the proceeds of the sale with Jones. Fischer has vehemently denied he and Jones worked together to get the documents to MLB.
As for St. Fleur, his attorney told WPEC that his client didn't know anything about the burglary or about Biogenesis.
