Last July, the Mariners claimed they were unaware that part of their bounty for Cliff Lee, P Josh Lueke, had been previously convicted of false imprisonment. COO Chuck Armstrong and team president Howard Lincoln plead ignorance regarding 2008 rape allegations against Lueke, statements called into question by former M’s pitching coach Rick Adair, who told the Seattle Times’ Geoff Baker he’d spoken with Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik about the pitcher’s history before the trade was consumated.

Adair, a minor-league pitching coordinator with the Rangers during the 2008 rape investigation, says he warned Zduriencik about Lueke’s situation.

“I told him everything I knew about every prospect I was asked about, including Lueke, including any court case,” said Adair, who was fired Aug. 9 along with Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu. “Everything I knew to be accurate, I told them.”

Mariners President Chuck Armstrong said he learned of Lueke’s case by reading media accounts published hours after the trade. He ordered Zduriencik to phone Texas GM Daniels back that night and get a player-to-be-named substituted in Lueke’s place.

“We tried that on Friday night,” Armstrong said. “But then, on Saturday morning, the Rangers said, ‘No, we’ve already notified the players. The deal stands as is.’ ”

But Rangers GM Josh Daniels said the Mariners could have sent Lueke back. “We offered several times to reacquire Lueke in a separate transaction ” an offer originally made the same night the deal was announced,” he said in an e-mail to The Times. “That offer stands.”

If you’re trying to sort out who is full of shit in the above circumstance, Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing‘s hypothesis does the Mariners few favors :

I think it’s important to note that Jon Daniels has no reason to lie or mislead. Rick Adair just got fired a few weeks ago. He may harbor some ill will, and may hold a bit of a grudge. The Mariners have the whole Refuse to Abuse campaign and, as Baker says, “have long supported groups opposing violence toward women.” So the Mariners clearly had a reason to smooth things over as much as they could. What would be Daniels’ angle? Daniels would have nothing to gain by not telling the truth.