NEW YORK (AP) — A woman charged with stalking and shaking down New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has said he got her phony identification to use in getting an abortion after she became pregnant with his child.
Cashman spokesman Chris Giglio said Wednesday that the allegations amount to "more fiction" from a woman already facing stalking, perjury and other charges.
Louise Neathway made the claim in papers she filed Monday in a Manhattan civil court as a prelude to a possible lawsuit, although it's yet not clear whom she might sue. Meanwhile, she is facing criminal charges of stalking Cashman and extorting thousands of dollars from him, harassing her ex-husband and another man and lying to a grand jury. She has pleaded not guilty and is jailed on $300,000 bond.
The Manhattan district attorney's office says Neathway deluged Cashman with calls and text messages, demanded money for a medical procedure and threatened to harm his reputation if he didn't pay. In response, he paid her $6,000, according to a court complaint. She was arrested in February.
Neathway, a 36-year-old medical sales worker originally from Britain, said in the sworn statement she filed Monday that she and the then-married Cashman were friends for about six years before they began a nine-month affair in April 2011.
When told she was pregnant with his baby in June 2011, Cashman said he wouldn't participate in raising the child, she said in the document. She said she decided on an abortion, and he then insisted on providing her a fake ID.
"He also took care in finding a clinic to provide the abortion service and car service for me on the day of the procedure," she said in the papers, which she filed without a lawyer. She's been in the process of changing lawyers in her criminal case.
While prosecutors accuse her of barraging him with phone calls, Neathway said her phone records show she got more than 100 calls from him between mid-December and the end of January.
Cashman's wife filed for divorce in February. The couple had been separated for a year, according to a person familiar with the family, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the matter.