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Sunday 1 July 2012

Dykstra agrees to plead guilty to bankruptcy fraud

Former New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra has agreed to plead guilty to three counts stemming from a bankruptcy fraud case in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Dykstra will plead guilty to one count each of bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. Dykstra faces up to 20 years in federal prison. It's not immediately known when his next court date will be. Dykstra, who bought a mansion once owned by hockey star Wayne Gretzky, filed for bankruptcy three years ago, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets. Prosecutors said that after filing for bankruptcy, Dykstra hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items without permission of a bankruptcy trustee. Court documents said Dykstra gave false and misleading testimony under oath about what he did with some of the items he took from his home. Dykstra said he put an oven, sconces and chandeliers into a storage unit, but prosecutors said he ended up selling the items for $8,500. He also hid baseball gloves, balls, bats and other memorabilia from the bankruptcy court and creditors and sold them last year for about $15,000, court documents show. Dykstra is currently serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement. He also was sentenced this year to nine months in jail after pleading no contest to charges he exposed himself to women he met on Craigslist. A phone message left for Dykstra's deputy federal public defender, Christopher Dybwad, was not immediately returned.

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