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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted at 12:59 a.m., Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Baseball: Yankees reportedly place employees on leave

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees placed several employees on leave pending the results of Major League Baseball's probe into the possible skimming of signing bonuses in the Dominican Republic, The New York Times reported today.

The employees scouted in the Dominican Republic, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified person in baseball who was briefed on the matter. Their names and jobs were not revealed in the report.

New York is one of six to eight teams being investigated, the person told the Times. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn't want to jeopardize his access to sensitive information, the newspaper said.

MLB and the FBI are investigating whether employees of several big league teams paid young Dominican prospects only portions of the signing bonuses that were reported and then kept the rest of the money for themselves.

ESPN.com first reported on Monday that MLB investigators were examining allegations pertaining to the Yankees, the newspaper said.

Pablo Lantigua, a Boston Red Sox scout in the Dominican Republic, was fired last week after baseball investigators confronted him about allegedly skimming signing bonuses, the Web site reported, citing an unidentified Major League Baseball source.

ESPN said the probe is likely to implicate about 20 people connected to several clubs, according to unidentified sources, and the investigation has been expanded into Venezuela, where many big league teams run player academies.

Four MLB investigators came back to the United States from the Dominican Republic last week and are drafting a report for the commissioner's office, ESPN.com reported.

In May, the Chicago White Sox fired senior director of player personnel David Wilder along with two other Dominican Republic scouts, Victor Mateo and Domingo Toribio, after a two-month probe by Major League Baseball's Department of Investigations.