A Fridley used car dealership is under fire from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office for allegedly misrepresenting the quality of vehicles it sold along with dishonest service contracts and high interest rates, according to a new lawsuit filed this week by Attorney General Keith Ellison.

The dealership, Midwest Car Search, and its owner, Scott Spiczka, were named in the lawsuit, which seeks to provide restitution for customers and to stop the alleged illegal business practices of the dealership.

“This is a long-term systematic pattern of deception targeting Minnesotans, often, but not always, with limited English language skills,” Ellison said at a Tuesday news conference at the state Capitol.

Spiczka and his business are accused of fraudulently selling more than 3,000 vehicles to Minnesotans from 2017 to 2022 that it claimed were certified. The lawsuit alleges the business illegally required customers to purchase service contracts up to $1,800. Those illegal contracts add up to about $4.5 million, according to the attorney general.

For a dealership to advertise a car as certified, the car must have been inspected for any deficiencies, must be sold with a warranty, and must not have sustained any damage that impairs safety, according to Minnesota statute. The investigation by Ellison’s office found that none of the 3,245 cars sold by Midwest Car Search were certified.

Henry Holmes, a man who purchased a vehicle from Midwest Car Search at a 22% interest rate, said he was told by the dealership that they would not be able to fix the myriad issues with the car, which included a bad exhaust manifold, exhaust gasket, tie rods and strut assemblies, despite Holmes purchasing a warranty from the dealer.

“I felt used, so I called the attorney general because I can’t see letting people get away with stuff like that and using the elderly people and the people that don’t understand what they are talking about,” Holmes, 77, of Minneapolis, said Tuesday.

The lawsuit is the attorney general’s first after the Legislature strengthened Minnesota’s Used Car Law last year, though the lawsuit targets the dealership’s business both before and after those changes.

The dealership is also accused of advertising in Spanish and presenting Spanish-speaking salespeople but giving people contracts in English to sign that did not represent the promises made during the negotiation.

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Had he been healthy, Brooks Lee likely would have debuted and seen plenty of action on the left side of the infield at this point of the season with both Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis nursing injuries. Instead, Lee is dealing with an injury of his own — one that will likely keep him out another month.

Initially called back spasms when he was removed from a spring training game in late March, the Twins revealed Tuesday that the top prospect’s injury has instead been diagnosed as a herniated disk in his back.

“I’d say he’s in the same midrange of what we heard is the return-to-play protocol,” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “He’s almost a month into the first part of the problem. Then, the next month is building back into baseball. So you’re looking at that kind of timeline would be my guess.”

Lee is being treated by specialist Dr. Robert Watkins, and Falvey said he is in the middle of Watkins’ protocol for returning to play.
Lee has started doing very light baseball-type activity, Falvey said, taking light swings.

“With this, you’ve just got to get it taken care of on the front end and then make sure when you’re building him up, you’re building him up pretty slowly,” Falvey said.

It’s tough timing, especially because Lee, the No. 17 prospect in baseball per MLB Pipeline, is coming off an impressive spring at the plate. The Twins have been using a combination of Willi Castro and Kyle Farmer, both off to slow starts, at third base and shortstop with Jose Miranda mixing in at third base.

Rehabbing relievers

Jhoan Duran began a rehab assignment on Tuesday night in St. Paul, and Justin Topa is right on his heels. The two Twins relievers have been on the injured list all season, but both are almost ready to return,

Topa, who was dealing with patellar tendinitis in his left knee, threw around 20 pitches on Tuesday at Target Field. It was his first live batting practice — previously he had thrown two regular bullpens and one with Royce Lewis standing in, tracking pitches.

Next, he plans to head over to St. Paul and begin a rehab assignment Thursday. He expects to throw for the Saints on Sunday, too.

“I kind of lightly penciled in the L.A. series as kind of the goal to be back,” Topa said of the upcoming weekend series in Anaheim. “I think we kind of knew going into it, talking with the doc, talking with (head athletic trainer) Nick (Paparesta) and everybody, that was kind of the plan. Let’s give it some time to calm down for a couple weeks, build up after that, and I think we’re pretty much on track with what we initially thought it was.”

Briefly

— Starter Brent Headrick is on the minor league injured list with a forearm strain, and the Twins recently transferred him to the 60-day injured list in the minors. “It’s just going to take some time to build back up,” Falvey said.

— Matt Canterino, also on the minor league injured list with a shoulder injury, has started throwing between 40-60 feet.

The Minnesota Timberwolves ownership dispute is moving into mediation.

The first session toward determining whether Glen Taylor will remain controlling owner or cede to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez has been scheduled for May 1, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the details were not being publicized. ESPN first reported the news.

The 82-year-old Taylor announced March 28 that he was exercising his right to pull out of the last part of the unusually structured deal because Lore and Rodriguez did not meet the deadline for the final payment — about $600 million — that was to transfer an additional 40% stake of the club.

Lore and Rodriguez vehemently disagreed. The pair said they were waiting on NBA approval for the paperwork they’d submitted by the March 27 deadline that entitled them, per the contract, to a 90-day extension. They accused Taylor of simply having seller’s remorse because the value of the Timberwolves has increased since the agreement, mirroring a continued spike in NBA revenues.

Taylor acknowledged his change of heart last month but said that was because of the good vibes around the organization during a 56-26 season that went down as the second-best in franchise history.

“We’ve got a really good team, we’ve got a lot of good things going for us, I enjoy it and I’m healthy enough to do this,” Taylor said in an interview with the AP after his announcement. “I don’t need the money, so I think I’ll just keep running it and enjoy it. I like my coach. I like my staff. This way everybody gets to keep their jobs, and I’ll be happy.”

Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this month that the league likely would not have a reason to intervene in the dispute.

Lore, an e-commerce entrepreneur, and Rodriguez, the former Major League Baseball star, struck an agreement with Taylor in 2021 to buy the Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx WNBA franchise for $1.5 billion. Taylor, who bought the team in 1994 for $88 million, set up the deal in phases so he could serve as a mentor of sorts to the newcomers as they learned the league, the organization and the Twin Cities community. Lore and Rodriguez together own 36% of the club.

Silver said the dispute might prompt the NBA to change its rules around such transactions so as to avoid future conflicts.

Taylor, Lore and Rodriguez were seen speaking cordially Saturday in a side hallway at Target Center after Minnesota beat Phoenix in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series.

Taylor sat next to his wife in their usual seats Tuesday next to the Timberwolves bench for Game 2. Lore and Rodriguez were seated with their guests directly across the court.

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By EDITH M. LEDERER (Associated Press)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations called Tuesday for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.

Credible investigators must have access to the sites, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, and added that more journalists need to be able to work safely in Gaza to report on the facts.

Earlier Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Shifa medical center in Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis as well as the reported discovery of mass graves in and around the facilities after the Israelis left.

He called for independent and transparent investigations into the deaths, saying that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” Türk said. “And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are ‘hors de combat’ (incapable of engaging in combat) is a war crime.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel on Tuesday called the reports of mass graves at the hospitals “incredibly troubling” and said U.S. officials have asked the Israeli government for information.

The Israeli military said its forces exhumed bodies that Palestinians had buried earlier as part of its search for the remains of hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The military said bodies were examined in a respectful manner and those not belonging to Israeli hostages were returned to their place.

The Israeli military says it killed or detained hundreds of terrorists who had taken shelter inside the two hospital complexes, claims that could not be independently verified. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, and EU.

The Palestinian civil defense in the Gaza Strip said Monday that it had uncovered 283 bodies from a temporary burial ground inside the main hospital in Khan Younis that was built when Israeli forces were besieging the facility last month. At the time, people were not able to bury the dead in a cemetery and dug graves in the hospital yard, the group said.

The civil defense said some of the bodies were of people killed during the hospital siege. Others were killed when Israeli forces raided the hospital.

Palestinian health officials say the hospital raids have destroyed Gaza’s health sector as it tries to cope with the mounting toll from over six months of war.

The issue of who could or should conduct an investigation remains in question.

For the United Nations to conduct an investigation, one of its major bodies would have to authorize it, Dujarric said.

“I think it’s not for anyone to prejudge the results or who would do it,” he said. “I think it needs to be an investigation where there is access and there is credibility.”

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said after visiting Israel and the West Bank in December that a probe by the court into possible crimes by Hamas fighters and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”

The discovery of the graves “is another reason why we need a cease-fire, why we need to see an end to this conflict, why we need to see greater access for humanitarians, for humanitarian goods, greater protection for hospitals” and for the release of Israeli hostages, Dujarric said Monday.

In the Hamas attack that launched the war, terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says Hamas is still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

In response, Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza, aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women. It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities, created a humanitarian crisis and led around 80% of the territory’s population to flee to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.