Woman Suing Wade Boggs Says Photos Back Her Up

A Costa Mesa woman claiming to be the jilted lover of Boston Red Sox baseball star Wade Boggs says she has hundreds of photographs of them together and scores of airplane tickets to document their four-year romance.

Margo Adams, a 32-year-old former Miss Stanton and self-described Young Republican “Nixon-ette,” sued Boggs in an Orange County court last week, charging him with breach of oral contract and fraud.

Adams said in an interview this week that she had only Boggs’ spoken promise to give her money to offset her expenses and loss of income from traveling around the country meeting him when he played road games.

Saying she was not “one of his brainless bimbos,” Adams said she expected that Boggs ultimately would leave his wife for her, even though he never actually said he would. Adams said she quit her job as a mortgage broker on the promise that Boggs would make up for her lost income.

Boggs could not be reached for comment, but Adams’ account was disputed by Boggs’ Orange County attorney, Jennifer J. King, who described the Costa Mesa woman as “basically a groupie who got rejected and she’s trying to make a quick buck on the situation.”

King declined to comment on “any romantic relationships that may have been there.”

“I can say with certainty there have never been any oral agreements (or) promises . . . made to Miss Adams by Mr. Boggs,” King said. “I can think of a whole lot of people out there who have made trips or gone somewhere because of their attraction to people.”

King, a Tustin-based lawyer, said that the lawsuit is baseless and that she expects it to be thrown out of court.

Adams said that at first, Boggs was a persistent suitor. “He sent me flowers in my office” and asked me to accompany him to Oakland, where he was scheduled to play, she said. But she said that she had a ski trip planned and declined the invitation.

“He begged and called and begged,” Adams said. “When I came back (from skiing), he called every single night.”

In her civil suit, filed June 3 in Orange County Superior Court, Adams seeks what she contends is an unpaid $500,000 stemming from Boggs’ broken promise, plus $5 million in punitive damages. In the words of her lawsuit, Adams “extended to Boggs emotional aid, support, companionship and all other benefits usually associated with a husband-and-wife relationship” on 65 road trips over 240 days in locations around the nation.

King said Tuesday that the Red Sox star third baseman, who earns about $1.6 million a year, “denies treating her (Adams) in any way like his wife. He has a wife he is very devoted to.”

According to the lawsuit, their relationship was severed May 1, when Boggs denied to Adams that he had ever promised to pay her $2,000 a month and “other business income” that she lost as a result of “being unable to adequately pursue her career.”

King said Boggs contacted the FBI last month to report that Adams “basically asked for $100,000 or she would send pictures (of them together) to his wife.”

“He made the complaint to the FBI, and they took it from there,” King said.

FBI spokesman Jim Neilson in Los Angeles said the agency does not confirm whether it has opened investigations. But Adams said FBI agents visited her home about three weeks ago.

Adams said she made no threats to Boggs. She said she did, however, say she would give him 90 days to pay her the money he owed.

FBI agents told her “it was definitely, obviously a civil matter, and they left and they apologized,” Adams said. “My attorney called them, and they (the FBI agents) told him that there would be no further investigation.”

According to records in Harbor Municipal Court in Newport Beach, Adams was charged in 1985 on suspicion of seven felony counts of using someone else’s credit card without permission. During a one-month period in late 1984, Adams charged $190 to the credit card, according to court records.

Adams, who has pleaded not guilty to all seven counts, did not discover until this year that the district attorney’s office had filed the charges, said Walter Cole, her attorney in the matter. A police officer stopped her car for a minor equipment citation and told Adams that there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest, Cole said.

A pretrial date on the charges is set for July 11 in Harbor Court.

Adams said she was introduced to Boggs by one of his teammates in 1984 at Crackers, a restaurant and bar near Anaheim Stadium, after a Red Sox game against the California Angels.

“It’s sad when you’re with someone for four years and it falls apart,” Adams said. “The person I know now is not Wade. He became rich and famous and changed.

“I think Wade forgot I am a smart girl. I am not one of his barroom girlfriends.

“Jokingly, I said (to Boggs) I could never fall in love with a married man. I guess I was a lot smarter then . . . because I ended up falling in love with him.”

Adams is a Magnolia High School graduate who said she used to be involved in Republican politics during the Nixon era, when she would go to campaign rallies and “stand in the back of the room and say: ‘Four more years!’ ”

‘Sentimental Person’

Adams explained that she kept each airline ticket of her rendezvous with Boggs because “I’m a very sentimental person. I save a lot of things.”

“I even had the first plane ticket I ever used, when I was 3 days old, from Connecticut to Miami.”

Adams declined to discuss her criminal case other than to say that Boggs told reporters about it to cast aspersions on her character.

Adams’ attorney, James McGee of Irvine, said his client quit her job with an Orange County mortgage company when she met Boggs and has not worked since then. He said she exhausted her savings but did not say how much of her money she might have spent in the last four years.

“But she’s certainly worse off than she was before she met him,” McGee said.

Boggs, 29, and his wife, Deborah, have two children: a 9-year-old girl and a boy who turns 2 next November. Boggs is in his seventh year in the majors, all with the Red Sox. Entering this season, he had a lifetime average of .354. He won American League batting championships in 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1987.

“Fortunately this situation has not interfered with his marriage,” Boggs’ attorney said. “And the day after (Boggs first approached King to represent him) . . . he went 3 for 4 (at bat), so I don’t think it’s had any effect” on his performance on the ball diamond.