How Lenny Dykstra Got Nailed

Anyone remember when Dykstra used to be Jim Cramer’s go-to option trading guy?

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The former Mets and Phillies hero turned out to be the centerfielder who couldn’t shoot straight

On Feb. 11, 2011, Wilberto Hernandez called in a report of identity theft to the Los Angeles Police Department. Hernandez, then 37, worked as a personal credit repair consultant in L.A., and he kept a close watch on his own credit score. He became alarmed when he received a notice from a credit agency that his Social Security number had been presented for credit checks at two car dealerships, one in La Crescenta and another in Pasadena.

When Hernandez said he had reason to believe that Lenny Dykstra was involved, the call was routed to detective Juan Contreras, a decorated 24-year LAPD veteran. Contreras was familiar with the hard-nosed former Mets and Phillies star, and not just because he was a baseball fan. Four months earlier Contreras had taken a call from a Los Angeles limo driver who claimed that Dykstra borrowed the driver’s credit card and, after promising to pay him back for the charges, failed to reimburse him. Contreras had searched police records and found an earlier report, this one from a former personal assistant to Dykstra, naming the ex-player as a suspect in an identity theft case. Like the limo driver, the assistant said that Dykstra had used her credit cards and never paid her back.

Neither of those reports had led to charges, but Contreras began asking questions. By Christmas 2010, he had spoken with 17 people—personal assistants, drivers, private jet pilots and housekeepers—who claimed that Dykstra did not pay them for services, used their credit cards or got hold of their Social Security numbers and opened credit cards in their names. One of the pilots Contreras interviewed claimed that Dykstra had asked to use the pilot’s credit card to gas up a private plane on a stopover in Europe. “In October, I was thinking, Hey, this is Lenny Dykstra, I grew up with this guy, I want to meet him,” Contreras says. “By November, I wanted to put the guy in jail.”

Read the rest here.