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Frank McCourt’s lawyer: ‘Jamie’s case is a loser’

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The lawyer for Frank McCourt charged Thursday that Jamie McCourt and her lawyers ‘have truly become desperate and are now using their court filings as press releases.’

In a court filing earlier Thursday, Jamie alleged that Frank had tampered with the agreement that divided the couple’s assets. Frank claims the agreement provides him with sole ownership of the Dodgers, but Jamie now charges that three of the six copies of the agreement do not do so, and that she never would have signed any document that turned over sole control of the team to Frank.

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Steve Susman, the attorney for Frank, called the claims ‘twisted and distorted’ in a letter to one of her attorneys and said Jamie’s legal team was ‘grasping at straws ... that don’t even exist.’

In that letter to Mike Kump, an attorney for Jamie, Susman wrote, ‘To turn this matter into the ugly accusations you have made reflects but one thing: You, too, agree that Jamie’s case is a loser on the merits of facts and law.’

Susman said he had no objection to Jamie’s request that the court consider all six copies of the disputed agreement. He said a drafting error resulted in the language that the agreement excluded rather than included the Dodgers as Frank’s separate property and said the agreement was corrected by the lawyer after the couple signed it.

Susman also said that the agreement was clearly intended to protect creditors from seizing the couple’s homes should any business assets falter. It would be absurd, he said, to consider an agreement that excludes rather than includes the business assets as Frank’s sole property.

‘You can’t possibly be suggesting that the (agreement) intended for Jamie to end up with all the houses and all the money,’ Susman wrote Kump, ‘and Frank to end up with nothing of substance as his personal property except at least $119 million in personal liabilities.’

More later at latimes.com/sports.

-- Bill Shaikin

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