I don't know what to make of this.

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Bill Shaikin reports on a popular rumor mill conversation from yesterday:

In a twist that has Frank McCourt threatening legal action, the driver with whom he alleges Jamie McCourt had an affair met this week with a Taiwanese legislator interested in strengthening ties with the Dodgers.

Jeff Fuller presented a Dodgers jacket and an autographed baseball from Manager Joe Torre to Sen. Justin Chou. In turn, Chou invited Jamie McCourt to visit Taiwan.

Fuller represented himself as a personal assistant to Jamie McCourt. This is pretty outrageous conduct on Jamie and Jeff's part, something that makes little sense in light of everything swirling around the Dodgers. Either Jamie made a horribly misguided decision that she needs to be publicly associated with the Dodgers, or Jeff made a monumental misstep and is likely the subject of Jamie's lawyers' ire. This is just bizarre.

Frank should channel his inner Judge Smails here and "slap an injunction on them so fast, it'll make their heads spin."

Certainly one of the odder moments in the saga thus far. If you have any thoughts about this, I'm game for a discussion in the comments. This just doesn't make sense.
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It's on.

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As promised, a closer look at Shaikin's piece, which is just loaded.

• Jamie says she's got the financing to take Frank out. 


• We know that she'd met with several luminaries inside and outside of the Dodger family. Her claims must be dependent, though, on a judicial determination that she does co-own the team with Frank. That hasn't happened, to this point, so it's tough to take her all that seriously.


• Frank's not taking offers.


• His position here will be that, as the sole owner of the team, he has no intention of selling. Like Jamie's "ready to buy" statement, Frank is relying on a favorable ruling regarding ownership of the team.


• Jamie's lawyer, the semi-legendary Bert Fields, believes his client's position is not affected by the question of ownership. He says that even if the court finds Frank to be the sole owner of the Dodgers, the club would be treated as community property and the value would be split.


• I'm not a divorce lawyer, but I do know this: courts like agreements. If there's a valid document out there, executed during the marriage, which purports to divvy up assets, I'm inclined to believe it would be followed. Yes, California's a community property state, but the 50/50 split is not absolute. An asset-transfer agreement might be treated like a post-nup, in which case it would control. Clever posturing here by Fields, but it's not conclusive.


• Frank and the Dodgers are trying to paint Jamie's position with the team as strictly ornamental, claiming she rarely showed up to work and didn't perform many standard duties at all.


• Ironically, this line of argument is going to make people like Frank even less. Remember that, in her filing, Jamie wanted to be restored to her position mainly to get the money and perks back. If it turns out that she didn't actually, you know, do anything for the Dodgers, all that cash sent down Benefits and Perquisites Alley is gonna seem even worse.


• Jamie's still seeing Jeff Fuller, her lover/bodyguard/driver, but her lawyer says that relationship didn't begin until well after Frank tried to cut her out.


• Even if true, it has to be wondered at this point if Fuller's the only one. It's entirely possible he is, I suppose, as the McCourts seemed to have their stuff together for a long, long time. But if Jamie, given her education and professional background, would make such a grievous error on the eve of major litigation...well, I'd lose a little bit of respect for her intelligence.


• The Dodgers' President, Dennis Mannion, slams Jamie further, saying that when she did show up for work, it was to pursue projects designed to garner positive press for her at the expense of the club.


• All you Dodger fans out there must be thinking the same thing that I am: Mannion is at least a little full of crap here. Whatever Jamie did to promote her own public image to the team's detriment, Frank was right there on board. Pumping up Jamie's role with the Dodgers was a team effort.


• Jamie's lawyer, Fields, counters Mannion, saying: "When people find out what she did as opposed to what he did, they're all going to want her to run the team."


• I think I speak for all of us: I'm not sure I want any of these clowns running the team. Frank, Jamie, Mannion, Fields. This sucks.

Dates of note coming up...on November 5, the family law court will hear Jamie's petition for reinstatement as CEO of the Dodgers. On December 1, the court will entertain Jamie's request for spousal maintenance.

Frank responds

No docs for me to peruse yet, but I'm sure we'll go through them at length later.

For now, know this: the Dodgers and the divorce court are now facebook friends, which means the Dodgers can post links on the court's wall.

Not really, but kind of.

The Dodgers claim, and TMZ has confirmed*, that Jamie was, as previously mentioned, involved with the help. The Dodgers note the hollowness of Jamie's demands to be reinstated, stating, "These two married but estranged people cannot even deal with one another from a distance. Yet she wants to reenter full employment and get dropped off and picked up every day by the individual who betrayed his own employer and its owner." From this angle, I think they're half right. She sure as hell doesn't want to be in the office with Frank right now, but she may indeed wish to be ferried around by Fuller, safe from whatever harm might befall a baseball team owner traveling to dangerous places. The Dodgers have also paid Jamie her salary through the end of this year.

*As a novice blogger but barely un-novice legal writer, I'm a little wary of saying TMZ confirms things. I need a bloggy security guard to protect me in these dangerous places.


McCourt claims that the 2004 asset-transfer arrangement left him with the Dodgers and her with the residences. The Dodgers are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and the real estate perhaps a mere hundred million. Such an imbalance in consideration is sometimes ok, but also sometimes not, as we'll discuss later. You can guess which McCourt will say it's a fair trade. He says she was motivated by the desire to shield herself from creditors should the Dodgers fail. The plan was that if their $1.2 billion empire crumbled, they'd still have some fancy roofs over their heads. Of course, she thinks that was all a ruse. This is gonna be fun.

I'm still waiting on the documents, but in the mean time, more:

The AP reports that Jamie and Jeff Fuller--her lover/bodyguard/driver--did some Dodger business in Israel in July. She, as the "face of the Dodgers," was there to sponsor the baseball portion of the Maccabiah Games--an international athletics competition. Jamie and Fuller then gallivanted about France for two-and-a-half weeks on the Dodgers dime. Frank claims that Jamie failed to perform an integral role of an $800 million operation's CEO: updating him on her whereabouts and activities.* These two are a pair, folks.

*One wonders how detailed this responsibility was. When I was a kid, my parents didn't really care where I was, as long as I told them when I was changing places and came in to say goodnight when I got home. I picture this with the McCourts, except in G-IV's and multimillion dollar homes, some of which have dreadfully small pools unsuitable for long-distance swimming.

Fuller, incidentally, was fired along with McCourt. I can think of better legal strategies than essentially painting the picture that you fired a woman for not sleeping with you anymore. This is gonna be fun. I keep telling you people that, and I mean it. Time for me to change locations. Will I be fired for not giving my boss proper status updates? It's about as likely as taking a two-and-a-half week vacation in France with my lover/bodyguard/driver.