LOS ANGELES -- Jamie McCourt's attorneys said Thursday they have located a document showing she has an equal stake in the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers and that the revelation will dramatically alter a bitter struggle for the team amid McCourt's divorce proceedings.
The attorneys filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking to allow a 2004 property agreement as evidence during a team ownership hearing scheduled to begin Aug. 30.
Jamie and Frank McCourt remain locked in a hard-fought divorce, with the ownership of one of baseball's most storied franchises hanging in the balance.
Thursday's filing contends that newly discovered documents correctly spell out the team's ownership, granting Jamie McCourt a stake. The agreement was located after a forensic analysis of other documents in the case revealed that another copy of the 2004 agreement improperly included an exhibit designating Frank McCourt as the Dodgers' sole owner.
"I think that this motion is going to blow the case out of the water," said Dennis Wasser, one of Jamie McCourt's attorneys.
Frank McCourt's attorney, Stephen Susman, downplayed the filing's significance.
"Jamie and her lawyers have truly become desperate and are now using their court filings as press releases," Susman wrote in a statement. He said all versions of the agreement should be considered by the judge.
In a letter to Jamie McCourt's attorneys, Susman contended that the exhibits, which he acknowledges differ from what was filed in the divorce court, do not change the overall agreement and that Frank McCourt remains the team's sole owner.
Susman said the fact that the incorrect exhibit was given to the court and to Jamie's McCourt's legal team does not change the overall agreement.
"The bottom line is that they have now admitted that the exhibit was switched," Wasser said. "They're not sure who did it. They're not sure when it happened."
He said no one told Jamie McCourt or her attorneys about the incorrect documents being filed.
A copy of the newly discovered agreement has not yet been filed with the court.