Inquiry by Dowd Is Decried

A lawyer who represented admitted gambler Howard Spira claims that baseball investigator John M. Dowd showed bias against then-New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner as early as last March, a week before Dowd’s investigation of Steinbrenner began.

In an affidavit signed last week, lawyer Roland Thau of the Federal Defenders Services unit in New York claimed Dowd told him privately in a meeting March 26 that he was intent on finding evidence against Steinbrenner.

“He told me that only the commissioner could bring George down and that (he) had gotten away with a lot . . . for years and that it was high time that he be dealt with,”’ Thau wrote of Dowd in the affidavit.

Dowd denied the accusation, saying that he never met alone with Thau.

Commissioner Fay Vincent decided to investigate Steinbrenner after the Yankee owner’s $40,000 payment to Spira was revealed March 18. Spira is scheduled for an April 8 trial on charges of attempting to extort Steinbrenner.