Boggs’ Offer to Settle Contains a Gag Clause

If Margo Adams accepts baseball star Wade Boggs’ surprise offer of $20,000 to drop her palimony lawsuit against him, the Costa Mesa woman would also have to stop talking publicly about the suit, Boggs’ lawyer said Wednesday.

The stipulation, however, is not an attempt to stop publication of the second installment in May of an interview Adams gave to Penthouse magazine, said Jennifer J. King, a Tustin attorney representing Boggs.

The Penthouse interview, the first installment of which appears in the magazine’s current April issue, is off limits, said King, because it is “a part of a contract” between Adams and Penthouse and to try to quash it “would be inappropriate.”

Talk Show Tour

The already published portions of the interview detail Adams’ 4-year relationship with the married Boston Red Sox third baseman and describe sexual antics she attributes to Boggs and some of his teammates. Adams has embarked on a talk show tour to promote sales of the magazine.

Boggs has said in the past that he would not negotiate with Adams. But King said he has changed his mind and offered to settle her lawsuit last week solely because he wanted to “relieve pressures” on his teammates.

The teammates “are concerned that they would be required to give depositions and have to interrupt their season and not without justification,” King said.

Adams, a 32-year-old former Miss Stanton, filed the Superior Court suit in Santa Ana last June charging Boggs with breach of an oral contract and fraud.

Adams says Boggs had promised to give her money to offset her expenses and loss of income from her travel around the country to meet him when he was playing road games. Her attorney has said Adams quit her job as a mortgage broker on Boggs’ promise that he would make up for her lost income.

The settlement offer, which King said was formally made last week, was made public in Wednesday’s editions of the Boston Globe. The offer has been acknowledged by Adams’ Irvine-based lawyer, James F. McGee, but King said no formal response has been received.

McGee did not return calls Wednesday and Adams could not be reached for comment.

A woman identified by police as Adams was arrested last weekend on a shoplifting charge at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza.

King said Wednesday that the arrest and Adams’ earlier conviction on a credit card offense would probably have no bearing on the lawsuit because misdemeanors are not admissible as character evidence in civil cases.