Major League Baseball

Steinbrenner assisted FBI in operations

Published May. 9, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner helped the FBI with two investigations — including one, his attorneys said, that involved terrorism — in the years leading up to a pardon by President Ronald Reagan, according to documents released by the bureau Monday.

In a letter to the US Justice Department dated Dec. 14, 1987, Steinbrenner's attorneys said he assisted the FBI "on certain highly confidential national security and criminal justice matters" over an 11-year period from 1976 to 1987.

Two years later, in 1989, Steinbrenner received a full pardon for making an illegal campaign contribution.

"Mr. Steinbrenner knows that he placed the lives of his family and himself in jeopardy through being involved in this terrorist matter," attorneys from Pierson, Ball & Dowd wrote in the letter. "He knows he made the right decision because the agents stated this information was very valuable to the United States."

A 1988 FBI memorandum contained in Steinbrenner's file said that the agency "supports the contention that George Steinbrenner has provided the FBI with valuable assistance." Bureau memoranda mention two probes with which Steinbrenner helped: a "sensitive security matter" and an "undercover operation."

After reviewing Steinbrenner's petition for a pardon in May 1988, the bureau determined that the evidence "bears out the contention made by George Steinbrenner ... that he has provided the FBI with extremely valuable assistance on both of the occasions cited."

The agency had redacted the details about the investigations before releasing the documents Monday.

Steinbrenner, according to the file, also gave the FBI and the New York City Police Department permission to use Yankee Stadium as the stage for the pursuit of a "major organized crime gambling syndicate in New York City" in January 1987. The FBI and police executed more than 500 raids as part of the operation, but "another site was chosen" for the raids "as it was more adaptable for the purpose intended."

In 1974, Steinbrenner had pleaded guilty to illegally authorizing corporate contributions to President Richard Nixon and other politicians and to obstructing justice. He was fined $15,000 and then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned him from baseball for 15 months. It was in 1979 that Steinbrenner first sought a pardon.

He eventually received a full and unconditional pardon from Reagan on Jan. 18, 1989.