The son of Yankees senior vice president Felix Lopez Jr. – who is the son-in-law of Bronx Bombers owner George Steinbrenner – was busted in 2002 for trafficking in a banned date-rape drug that has been used by athletes for muscle recovery, and for possession of anabolic steroids at his Tampa, Fla., apartment, records reveal.
Felix Lopez III, who in recent weeks has been spotted at the Yankees’ minor league facility in Tampa working out in official team sweats, served 19 months of probation after pleading guilty to reduced charges in 2003.
Lopez, 30, had been arrested at his Tampa home in September 2002 as part of a nationwide Drug Enforcement Administration sting, which cooperated with local law enforcement authorities, for trafficking in a drug known as GBL.
Cops kicked in the door to his apartment after he signed for a package containing a shipment of GBL, which is chemically related to the date-rape drug GHB, and which had been used in supplements geared toward athletes and bodybuilders, who used it for muscle recovery and sleep aid.
Lopez, records say, failed to answer a door knock by cops, who apprehended him at gunpoint after breaking into his residence. Inside the apartment, police found multiple vials of anabolic steroids, a shotgun, paperwork referring to the chemical used to make the club-drug Ecstasy, as well as between one and five kilograms of GBL.
Lopez, who is a contractor, could have been sentenced to 15 years in prison if convicted of the charge of trafficking in GBL, which had been linked to a number of serious overdoses and deaths.
But that top charge was reduced to a lesser drug felony of possession with intent to distribute. He pleaded guilty to that, and to the possession charge related to the steroids, and received a sentence of 36 months of probation which was later reduced at his request to 19 months.
Lopez also was arrested on a battery charge in 2005 after allegedly punching his estranged girlfriend, who soon after claimed he called her and co-workers and threatened to release salacious videos of her. That case later was dropped. Earlier this year, Lopez was accused of allegedly kiting a check of more than $2,000 to a contractor, but that case also was later dropped when the parties agreed to resolve the case civilly.
Earlier this week, a source told The Post that Lopez had been acquired as a strength trainer for the Yankees minor league facility, which his father, Felix Lopez Jr., oversees.
Lopez Jr. is married to Jessica Steinbrenner, the younger daughter of the Yankees principal owner.
But Lopez III, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, and Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for George Steinbrenner, all denied that the younger Lopez had been, or was going to ever be, hired by the Yankees.
“I have not,” Lopez III said, when asked if he had been hired. “I’m not a hire … I wish.
“No, it’s always best to let family just do kind of their own thing. I don’t work for the complex at all, no W-2, no paychecks, nothing.”
Lopez III did confirm he has visited the minor league complex, noting that his dad works there.
The Post’s questions about Lopez’s criminal record caught a number of highly placed Yankees sources by surprise, as they were completely unaware of that aspect of his history.