New York ? Baseball’s contraction plan sparked another lawsuit Tuesday, with former minority partners of the Expos accusing commissioner Bud Selig with mail fraud and wire fraud.

In a 45-page federal complaint filed in Miami under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the 14 minority owners accused Selig and former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria of conspiring for more than two years to eliminate Montreal.

They asked that the Expos, one of the teams threatened in baseball’s contraction plan, be placed in trust and said that if baseball officials try to move or fold the team, they would seek an injunction.

“From the beginning of Mr. Loria’s involvement with the Expos, he and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme that had as its object the destruction of baseball in Montreal, so that Mr. Loria and his co-conspirators could justify relocating the franchise to the United States,” the owners said in the complaint.

They accused Loria and his staff of conduct “that effectively destroyed the economic viability of baseball in Montreal (that) included removing the Expos from local television, subverting well-developed plans for a new baseball stadium in downtown Montreal, purposefully alienating Expos’ sponsors and investors, abandoning agreed-upon financial plans for the franchise, and undermining a planned recapitalization of the franchise that would have added new Canadian partners.”

Bob DuPuy, baseball’s chief operating officer, called the suit “frivolous” and “a shameless attempt to obtain through publicity what they know they are not entitled to legally.”

DuPuy said the commissioner’s office had nothing to do with the losses, that it was a dispute among the Expos’ partners that didn’t involve the commissioner’s office and said baseball’s lawyers “will seek sanctions against those responsible for bringing these baseless claims.”

“They told us that they did not oppose the contraction of the Montreal Expos, as long as they got paid out, but that they did not want public blame for the team’s relocation or contraction,” DuPuy said.

The suit contends Loria and Marlins president David Samson conspired with baseball officials to dilute the minority partners’ share of the team from 76 percent to 6-to-7 percent and never intended to keep the franchise in Montreal. Baseball says the partners’ share was decreased because they refused to put up additional money Loria asked for in “cash calls” permitted by the partnership agreement.

“It is ironic that these partners are now claiming to be so committed to baseball in Montreal when they were unwilling to fund a penny of operating losses since 1991 and instead directed ‘fire sales’ of players during the 1990s,” said Loria, who called the claims “completely without merit.”

Earlier this year, Loria’s holding company, which bought a 24 percent controlling interest in the Expos for $12 million in December 1999, sold the team to a company owned by the other 29 major league teams for $120 million and purchased the Florida Marlins from John Henry for $158.5 million. Henry became owner of the group that bought the Boston Red Sox for $660 million.

“They are better off financially now than they were when they owned a comparable percentage of the Montreal Expos,” DuPuy said of the limited partners.

The lawsuit asks for compensatory damages, which are tripled in RICO cases, plus at least $100 million in punitive damages.