New York (Aug. 30, 2004) -- The Internal Revenue Service has hit banned baseball bad boy Pete Rose with a nearly $1 million federal tax lien that it says he owes for tax years dating back to 1997.
An IRS lien, filed in Florida's Broward County courthouse, says 62-year-old Rose, also known as Charlie Hustle, owes Uncle Sam a total of $973,693.28 for the years 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to The Smoking Gun, which has posted a copy of the lien to its Web site,
Rose, who played for the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies and, briefly, for the Montreal Expos during his career, spent five months in federal prison in 1990 following a guilty plea to a felony tax evasion charge.
He retired in 1986 and agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1998 following an investigation that he bet on games. However, Rose, who finally admitted this year after repeated denials that he bet on games involving the Reds while managing the team in the late 1980s, is still hoping to be reinstated by commissioner Bud Selig and to become eligible for admittance into the Hall of Fame. Rose set the all-time major league hit record of 4,192.
-- WebCPA staff
