March 11, 2009 6:35 PM

Add Robb Nen to the List of MLB Players Tied to Stanford

Posted by Zach Lowe

As we wrote yesterday, the civil case against alleged fraudster R. Allen Stanford--and the criminal case against one of his top executives--is starting to get very, very interesting. 

We'll leave the legal wrangling over "noisy withdrawals" and whether Stanford will face criminal charges for another post. For now, we wanted to do our part in helping the sports fans out there track the Major League Baseball players who invested with Stanford or used his company as a broker. So far we've had two Yankees (Xavier Nady and Johnny Damon, always a member of the Red Sox in the mind of The Am Law Daily) and one New York Met (pitcher Mike Pelfrey).

Now we can add All-Star closer Robb Nen to the list. Nen, who last pitched in the majors with the San Francisco Giants in 2002, has money in seven trust accounts that have been frozen by a court order in the civil case against Stanford. Nen has asked for those accounts to be unfrozen, court records show. His accounts are not controlled by Stanford, and Nen never invested any money in the Stanford certificates of deposit at the center of the alleged scam, says his lawyer, Michael Quilling, name partner Quilling, Selander, Cummiskey & Lownds in Dallas. (Quilling specializes in acting as a court-appointed receiver in civil fraud cases. He's not a receiver in the Stanford case, but his experience has gotten him business from at least a half-dozen Stanford customers in Nen's situation, according to court records. Quilling says Nen's personal lawyer in California referred the ex-pitcher to him.)

Stanford's financial group acted as Nen's broker, orchestrating trades and exchanges, but did not control any of Nen's money in a Stanford account, court records show. (Another broker-dealer, Pershing LLC, controls the accounts.) 

Still, the court has ordered all such accounts frozen, Quilling says. It's unclear how much Nen has locked up in the seven accounts. Two have less than $250,000 in them, but the other five have at least that amount--or a minimum of $1.25 million. (Nen made more than $50 million in salary during his MLB career.) 

As this story on MLB.com notes, super agent Scott Boras represents all four players with money tied in some way to Stanford. (According to FOX Sports, Boras has denied that he encourages players to do business with Stanford.)

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