Canseco Arrested After Ramming Wife’s Car

Oakland Athletic outfielder Jose Canseco was arrested Thursday after police said he chased his estranged wife’s car, rammed it twice and spat on her window.

Canseco, 27, was booked in the Dade County Jail and released on $5,000 cash bond. He was charged with aggravated battery, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.

The confrontation began about 4:30 a.m. when Canseco and his wife, Esther, started arguing at a 24-hour gas station, Metro-Dade police spokesman Ralph Fernandez said.

Canseco took his wife’s purse and pager, a police report said. He eventually gave back the purse but refused to return the pager.

Esther Canseco took the purse and sped off in her BMW. Canseco followed in his Porsche and in one block rammed the left front panel and the right rear panel of her car, causing about $10,000 in damage, police said.

When Esther Canseco, 25, pulled to the side of the road, Canseco walked up to her side window, the report said. An officer arrived to see Canseco spit on her driver’s side window, Fernandez said.

Police said Esther Canseco repeatedly explained what had happened to the investigating officer, but when her husband was arrested, recanted her story, saying the collisions were an accident. She then returned to her original account and asked that her car be towed away, Fernandez said.

The Cansecos, who live in separate Miami-area homes, have had a turbulent three-year marriage.

Canseco filed for divorce in January of 1991 but later withdrew his petition and said they were trying to work out their problems.

Canseco’s arrest was but the latest run-in with the law for the trouble-prone baseball star.

Canseco was arrested in San Francisco after a passerby noticed a loaded pistol on the floor of his parked Jaguar in April of 1989. He has received several tickets since then, including one for driving 104 m.p.h. in a Miami street in February of 1991 and another for going 120 m.p.h. on Interstate 95 in suburban Miami two years earlier.