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Dykstra Files Suit, Says He's A Victim Of Predatory Lending
By
Ben Muessig
Published Mar 18, 2010
Modified Mar 18, 2010
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Mar 18, 2010
Modified Mar 18, 2010
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Former Met Lenny Dykstra has filed a $100 million lawsuit to win back money he claims he lost after a bank tricked him into taking out loans he couldn't afford. The Twizzler lover, car-wash owner, and magazine publisher says an overly friendly loan officer at Washington Mutual convinced him to take out loans that were "untenable" when he was trying to buy former hockey star Wayne Gretsky's $17.2 million California mansion.
According to the Daily News, Dykstra says Washington Mutual agreed to give him a $17.5 million loan to buy the property in 2007, but then decided it would only loan the former ballplayer $12 million. That's when a Washington Mutual loan officer who had "created a special relationship with (Dykstra) that went beyond simply a lender-borrower relationship," convinced the three-time all star to take out an additional one-year, interest-only loan of $8.5 million from another bank. Even though the second loan meant "Nails" was spending $135,000 per month—$10,000 more per month than he was making at the time—his suit alleges that Washington Mutual "was willing to proceed with this untenable transaction" so it could acquire the property "through .... default," the Post reports.
After taking out the second loan, Dykstra claims his loan officer had promised him that Washington Mutual—which has since been taken over by JPMorgan Chase—would refinance his loan within 60 days. But the bank never did and creditors came after Dykstra, forcing him to give up the mansion and his Gulf Stream III jet. He was also forced to sell off promissory notes he held on a chain of California car washes, which he claims cost him about $100 million. Dykstra—whose lifestyle was the subject of a must-read New Yorker piece a few years back—has been in the news before for his financial woes and legal problems. It's unclear where things stand with his potential reality show.
Tagged
baseball
JPMorgan Chase
lenny dykstra
loans
mansion
mets
nails
predatory lending
washington mutual
Ben Muessig
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