Major League Baseball

A-Rod lawyer sues Daily News, ex-NYPD commish for defamation

Published Feb. 7, 2014 9:35 p.m. ET

foxsports

NEW YORK (AP) One of Alex Rodriguez's lawyers has sued the New York Daily News, two of its reporters and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik for defamation.

Joseph Tacopina said in a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that reporters Nathaniel Vinton and Michael O'Keefe ''engineered'' the filing of a disciplinary complaint by Kerik ''so that they could publish a negative article about Tacopina'' in December.

The complaint said the reporters hoped to discredit Tacopina after he was retained by Rodriguez and called it ''a conspiracy between two unethical newspaper reporters ... and a convicted felon and liar.''

Tacopina once represented Kerik, who was released in 2012 after three years in federal prison stemming from his guilty pleas to eight felonies, including tax fraud and lying to the White House while being vetted for the position of Homeland Security Secretary.

Daily News Assistant General Counsel Matthew Leish said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Friday that ''the claims are completely without merit and the allegation that the Daily News' reporters were involved in some sort of conspiracy is simply absurd. We will file our response in due course.''

It was not clear who was representing Kerik in this suit.