Broke ex-Met Lenny Dykstra claims he was duped into over-extending himself on the purchase of hockey legend Wayne Gretsky’s California mansion.
In a $100 million “predatory lending ” suit filed this afternoon, the former center fielder says he had a deal to borrow $17.5 million from now-defunct Washington Mutual Bank to buy Gretzky’s posh pad at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
But “without warning, just prior to the close of escrow” in August 2007, WaMu said it would only loan the former All-Star $12 million, his Manhattan federal court says.
Dykstra — who’s suing JPMorgan Chase, which bought out WaMu after it collapsed in the subprime loan crisis — claims his loan officer then “introduced” him to a “‘hard money’ lender, First Credit Bank.”
First Credit offered Dykstra a one-year, interest-only loan for $8.5 million to cover the difference and also also pay off Dykstra’s loans on some commercial property in Simi Valley, Calif.
Although the combined monthly costs, including property taxes, came to $135,000 — $10,000 more than Dykstra’s total income at the time — WaMu “was willing to proceed with this untenable transaction,” the suit says.
Dykstra says he agreed to the deal because he believed WaMu would arrange to re-finance the First Credit loan within 60 days, based on assurances from the loan officer, who allegedly “created a special relationship with (Dykstra) that went beyind simply a lender-borrower relationship.”
But after the closing, the re-financing fell through and Dykstra was forced to sell off promissory notes he held on a chain of California car washes, leaving him with losses of approximately $100 million, the suit says.