Was ex-American League MVP and admitted steroid abuser Jose Canseco too busy counting the money from his Major League Baseball tell-all books to remember to pay his mortgage? Nope. When the California market tanked, Canseco made “a mathematical decision” to walk away from his mortgage, says the Wall Street Journal.

“He made a mathematical decision and just let it go,” said Gregory Emerson, Mr. Canseco’s lawyer.

Mr. Canseco bought the 7,300-square-foot home in Encino, Calif., for nearly $2.8 million in 2005, according to public records. He transferred partial ownership to a trust last year, according to Mr. Emerson. That trust defaulted on mortgage payments in October, and foreclosure was recorded in February, public records show.

The house already had at least one lien placed on it, from the Internal Revenue Service, and a judgment stemming from a 2005 court ruling in which Mr. Canseco and his brother Ozzie were found liable for a 2001 brawl in a Miami Beach nightclub. Together, the liens and judgment totaled some $1.3 million, according to Mr. Emerson and Tina Cameron, Mr. Canseco’s real-estate agent.

“Given that there were liens on the house and the market had gone down, he made the decision to let it go,” Mr. Emerson said. He said that the decline in property values alone meant that Mr. Canseco’s equity in the house had fallen by about $1 million.

Mr. Canseco is currently promoting his second tell-all about steroid-use in Major League Baseball, and continues to assist federal agents who are investigating Roger Clemens for perjury, etc. Canseco told Inside Edition:

“I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else.”

“I decided to just let it go, but in most cases and most families, they have nowhere else to go,” he said

Home Run: Canseco Lets House Go Into Foreclosure [WSJ]
Jose Canseco: Walking Away from His Mortgage ‘Not Difficult Emotionally’ [WSJ]
(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

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