Path To Broadcasting Career Ended In Arrest

(From The Journal News [Westchester, Rockland, Putnam] -- By Janet Paskin)

MARK SABIA always wanted to be a sportscaster, so much so that he finagled his first press pass to a GIANTS game before he'd even graduated from high school.

Professionally, he was precocious and talented, outgoing and full of chutzpah, and when he finally tried to make a career as a freelancer, he brought his friends along with him -- in exchange for their free labor as cameramen, Sabia took them behind the scenes at all of New York's professional sporting events.

The problems arose when MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL couldn't verify that Sabia's work ever hit the airwaves -- and when MLB officials learned he allegedly was selling the access that his credentials conferred.

"He was making an extraordinary amount of money doing this," a source close to MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL said. "He was selling credentials to photographers, whoever; we're talking upwards of $50,000 a year. This was subsidizing his living."

Sabia's alleged scam captured the nation's attention, the latest in a series of would-be journalist scandals. Technology has made it easier than ever for people to style themselves as journalists. When bloggers break news and a former porn star secures a WHITE HOUSE credential, it's getting harder to know who's legitimate.

Now, Sabia, of Ossining, New York insists he's just a little guy trying to thrive amid the broadcast behemoths, and that his services, while not on the scale of ESPN, gave him legitimate business in those locker rooms and press boxes.

Not good enough, says the Queens district attorney. Sabia was arrested April 11th when he arrived to cover the METS on Opening Day at SHEA STADIUM. He was charged with five felony counts and 16 misdemeanor counts, including criminal impersonation and falsifying business records. If convicted on all charges, he could face up to four years in jail.

Sabia, 39, identified himself as the sports director of WESTCHESTER CABLE SERVICES, which authorities say doesn't exist, and the upstate television stations that supposedly used his tape say they've never heard of him. But for more than 20 years, Sabia's enterprise was enough to get him and his cameramen the kind of access most sports fans only dream of.

"He had interviewed everybody," said MIKE CALHOUN, who went to several games as Sabia's cameraman in the late 1990s. "You name it, he'd interviewed them. He flew to all kinds of games. He had credentials to Superbowls. You know what's crazy? No one ever checked us. We just walked in with our camera bags. They just all knew him from doing it for so long."

Early in his career, Sabia took the traditional path of an aspiring broadcaster. After graduating from FOX LANE HIGH SCHOOL, Sabia spent three years in film school at NEW YORK UNIVERSITY'S TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS. He then landed a full-time job as a production assistant at WVIP in Mount Kisco, a local cable station. He and CINDY DeFEO, then WVIP's cable director, were responsible for 14 30-minute programs each week. For one, called THE LOOP, Sabia occasionally filed reports from YANKEE STADIUM, where he had a credential.

Sabia's tenure at WVIP was brief. He also worked for C-TEC (now SUSCOM) in Carmel and began to cobble together more and more freelance work, shooting commercials, local events and weddings.

When he met Calhoun, a Westchester bartender, in 1995, Sabia introduced himself as a reporter, and he had the credentials and equipment to support it. The two quickly became friends, and when Sabia moved into a Bedford apartment with Calhoun and two other men, he set up a video-editing studio. Soon, Calhoun became one of Sabia's occasional cameramen.

"I knew I wasn't a journalist. It was more of an acting experience for me," said Calhoun, who had moderate success acting in commercials and on stage.

"It was his way of being social," Calhoun said of Sabia taking friends to games. "He was a little bit of an introvert. I know many bartenders he's taken, along with women."

Calhoun said he sometimes wondered where Sabia's work aired and who paid for it, but as long as he was on time with the $345 monthly rent, he didn't care too much. But Sabia, Calhoun said, was a pack rat, and when Calhoun started insisting that Sabia clean his room, the two began to argue.

Sabia and Calhoun had a falling out after Sabia was charged in August 2000 outside the KATONAH BAR AND GRILL with possession of a stolen handgun. The charges later were dismissed, and Sabia's record wiped clean.

Sabia moved to Ossining, and the two men haven't spoken since.

"Mark wouldn't hurt a fly," Calhoun said. "He was harmless. People who knew him just knew he was strange, moody. Very intelligent, too. Maybe he can get a job out of this -- a real job."

Sabia continued to take a camera and crew to New York sporting events, identifying himself as the sports director for WESTCHESTER CABLE SERVICES. He secured a credential for himself and a transferable one for a technician, common practice for television reporters who frequently work with lots of different cameramen. He was a fixture in the locker room and the press box at games of the YANKEES, METS, KNICKS, JETS, GIANTS and DEVILS; the NETS revoked his credential "four or five years ago," GARY SUSSMAN, the team's vice president of public relations, said.

"We gave him a credential for several years, and then we asked to see his work to verify that the interviews we were doing were showing up somewhere," Sussman said. "When we did not receive the work, we pulled his credential."

But Sussman said he didn't suspect criminal behavior, and he didn't alert any of the area's other professional franchises. MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL didn't start to investigate Sabia until after the 2004 postseason, when the league decided to take a closer look at several of the small-time outfits that request credentials every season.

Sabia, who declined comment for this article, has maintained his innocence. He says he worked as a stringer for several upstate television stations. General managers, news directors and sports directors at the stations listed in the criminal charges -- in Elmira, Schenectady, Utica, Plattsburgh and Watertown -- say they've never heard of him.

"If (Sabia freelanced for us) a long time ago, it had to have been a LONG time ago," said KAE NEWMAN, the assignment editor at WWNY in Watertown. "We're a small market, and our viewers like their local sports, and that's what our department excels at. To have a stringer down in New York City would have been such an unusual thing for us to do, someone would remember. And none of us do."

Sabia is due back in court June 15th. In the interim, he will prepare to defend himself. He has a lawyer, and together, they will try to prove that his work was legitimate. And while this scandal has likely damaged Sabia's credibility, it also may have secured the very opportunities he desired most.

On Tuesday, a production assistant from ESPN2's COLD PIZZA tried to reach Sabia for an appearance on the morning TV program.