If you’ve read about the restraining order that a court issued against Trevor Bauer on behalf of his alleged sexual assault victim, you may have noticed that The Athletic quoted “a statement made on Tuesday night by Bauer’s agent, Jon Fetterolf.”
Hang on a second. Who the heck is Jon Fetterolf? Isn’t Bauer’s agent, rather notably, Rachel Luba? Hasn’t the former UCLA gymnast been extremely public in her representation of the pitcher, for a couple of years now?
Well, yes. But Fetterolf isn’t new to Team Bauer. When the righthander agreed to his three-year, $102 million deal with the Dodgers over the winter, The Washington Post referred to “his agents — Rachel Luba and Jon Fetterolf.” So… why haven’t we heard much about Fetterolf until now, to the point that there was even some confusion in the reporting by ESPN’s Jeff Passan?
Fetterolf, a former basketball and baseball player at Haverford College, is a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder, where his bio lists his focus as “white collar defense” ahead of “sports.” Fetterolf is a certified agent, yes, but what does he do most of the time? “Jon represents companies and individuals under criminal investigation for antitrust violations, bribery, money laundering, and a variety of other types of financial fraud, including tax, securities, accounting, and government contract fraud.”
In other words, Fetterolf is cool with repping absolutely anyone, so long as their check clears. And this isn’t the first time that he’s been the counsel for a star pitcher in a sexual assault case. In 2014, Fetterolf argued that the woman accusing former All-Star hurler Alfredo Simon of rape should not be granted anonymity in a civil suit. Jane Doe did not have to reveal her identity, and the sides eventually settled.
The other case of Fetterolf’s that’s gotten headlines is the federal suit against Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez over a bar fight, which Fetterolf got thrown out of federal court. He’s good at his job, and unlike Bauer’s other agent, generally good at staying out of the spotlight. For all the white collar work Fetterolf has done, none of it has gotten his name in the news, at least not news archived by the authoritative Lexis-Nexis database. He does appear in a Congressional file… as the firm of Williams & Connolly listed dozens of attorneys, including Fetterolf, on its letterhead for a response by Richard Cooper to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2008.
Bauer and Luba may be terminally online, but Fetterolf is not. And his involvement now is a sign of just how serious this situation is.
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