The sponsors of the Serbian basketball league allowing the fugitive Binghamton bruiser to play should pull the plug on their affiliation, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday.
“You may already know that Miladin Kovacevic, a fugitive wanted in the brutal assault of an American citizen, has reportedly signed a contract to play with the KK Vrbas basketball club,” Clinton wrote in a letter to four companies that sponsor the league.
“In response to this troubling development, I urge you to remove your sponsorship or any association with the Serbian Basketball Federation.”
The letter was sent to the heads of the Pennsylvania basketball-shoe company AND1, Italian track-suit maker Kappa Clothing, Belgium’s Efes Breweries, and the Serbian pharmaceutical company Hemofarm.
“I urge you to use your influence as a leading sponsor of Serbian basketball to urge the federation to not allow Mr. Kovacevic to play basketball for one of its teams,” Clinton wrote.
A message left with AND1’s parent company, American Sporting Goods, was not returned. Officials with the European companies could not be reached.
The thuggish Slav fled the United States after being bailed out following his arrest for the savage beating on May 4 of SUNY Binghamton student Bryan Steinhauer, 23, at a bar near the school.
Steinhauer, who hails from Brooklyn, has only recently begun emerging from a coma and remains hospitalized.
Kovacevic managed to escape from justice with the help of a Serbian diplomat who issued him an illegal passport to replace the one seized by authorities.