Lenny Dykstra Was Indicted Again

Art imitates life, and vice versa. I wouldn’t presume to call the words I scribble on these electronic pages “art” — and yet they, too, seem to imitate life. You see, way back in February, back before 26 of baseball’s 30 teams had been eliminated and hope still sprang eternal, I wrote about former Mets and Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra and his fantastic claims of extorting umpires. Dykstra, it should be noted, took a surprising amount of pleasure in what was, if true, undoubtedly an illegal exercise.

Now, on the topic of the former illegal exercise, one finds the following recent reprot:

To be fair, this isn’t Dykstra’s first run-in with the criminal justice system.

Since retiring from baseball, Dykstra has served prison time for bankruptcy fraud, grand theft auto and money laundering, and he declared bankruptcy in 2009, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets.

Cocaine and methamphetamine charges don’t represent new territory for an ex-ballplayer: Esteban Loaiza pled guilty to the same this past August. A so-called “terroristic threat” would appear to be something altogether different, though.

Under Section 2706(a) of Title 18 of the Pennsylvania State Code, the crime of “terroristic threats” is defined thusly:

A person commits the crime of terroristic threats if the person communicates, either directly or indirectly, a threat to:

(1)  commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another;

(2)  cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly or facility of public transportation; or

(3)  otherwise cause serious public inconvenience, or cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.

Despite its ominous-sounding name, a charge of terroristic threats is generally a misdemeanor. So what did Dykstra do to merit this charge? USA Today’s Suzanne Russell tells us:

On May 23, 2018, Dykstra, 55, of Linden, was arrested by Linden police in connection with allegedly threatening an Uber driver…. The Uber driver… told police he had picked up Dykstra in Linden for a scheduled fare before Dykstra apparently tried to change the destination. The driver refused to make the destination change. Dykstra allegedly put a weapon to the driver’s head and threatened to kill him, according to police. No weapon was found in Dykstra’s possession. Both Dykstra and the Uber driver, Brian Lutty, 47, allege the other made him fear for his life.

If this is true, Dykstra is actually fortunate to only be charged with making terroristic threats and not something more serious. After all, Dykstra is a convicted felon, and Pennsylvania restricts the rights of felons to own firearms.

Fortunately for Dykstra, he was offered a sweetheart plea deal. Unfortunately for Dykstra, he decided to reject that sweetheart plea deal.

In August, Dykstra, through his attorney Michael Brucki, rejected a non-custodial probation plea offer on the terroristic threats charge. Brucki said Dykstra was maintaining his innocence.

But the judge also alerted Brucki and Dykstra to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office escalating plea policy in which once Dykstra rejects the plea, it is off the table and will not be offered again.

In other words, the state of Pennsylvania offered Dykstra probation and no jail time for holding a gun to someone’s head, and Dykstra said no. (I’ll let you decide for yourselves about the wisdom of that decision.) As for his reasoning, Dykstra insists that he was the victim and that Lutty kidnapped him.

Dykstra claimed the driver threatened and tried to kidnap him early on the morning of May 23 after Dykstra asked to change the trip’s destination. At a news conference a few weeks after the incident, Dykstra said the driver locked the car’s doors and sped up, and that he was “literally in fear of my life.”

Dykstra’s approach has other consequences, as well. Section 2706(c) contains a private right of action, which is basically just a fancy legalese way of saying that Lutty can sue Dykstra in addition to any criminal sanctions. Dykstra might not be worried about that, though. As he told the New Yorker in August,

“You couldn’t get six fiction writers to write a better novel than this, could you?… Everything with me is, like, I’m either flying private jets or I’m in the cooler! What other person gets kidnapped by an Uber driver?”

Dykstra’s first court hearing is set for October 22, 2018.





Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.

23 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Roger McDowell Hot Foot
5 years ago

Sometimes I wish there were a Baseball Hall of Weirdness. In my imaginary version of it Lenny was inducted some time ago but he’s now the subject of a growing wing of sideshow amusements. You can’t miss it, it’s right next to the Carl Everett Museum of Paleontology.