Jason Gabbert, the Minnesota man who sold Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez's chewing gum at an auction for $10,000 last year, is suing the owner of a security firm and an unnamed guard it employed alleging they slandered him, significantly hindering the final price.

	DNA tests confirm original wad of gum came from Luis Gonzalez, seller of collectible said.

Gabbert filed the lawsuit on April 1 in Maricopa County in Arizona where the company is located. He attended a Diamondbacks spring training game at Tucson Electric Park in March 2002 and said he obtained the gum from a security guard who retrieved it for him after Gonzalez spit it out. After putting the item up for bid on his Web site, a media frenzy ensued and self-promoters starving for publicity clamored to be the top bidder.

But a week into the two-week auction -- with the gum commanding bids of more than $3,000 -- Tom Vigilante, owner of Vigilante Security Services, said his security guard, known only as "Ponytail John," did not retrieve the gum for Gabbert. With the authenticity questioned, Gabbert said the potential value of the gum dropped and he claims that potential bidders told him they were concerned about the gum's legitimacy.

"That ruined everything," Gabbert said. "I honestly thought the value was going to be in the six figures."

Vigilante declined to comment on the pending litigation.

At the time, a representative from Joyce Julius & Associates, a media evaluation firm, told ESPN.com that the value from being the winning bidder would be worth as much as $750,000 in media mentions in the first 48 hours alone.

The winning bidder was Curt Mueller. His company, Mueller Sports Medicine, manufactures and distributes Quench, which is a competitor to Bazooka, the brand chewed by Gonzalez.

Gabbert donated the $10,000 to his alma mater, Lakeview High School in Cottonwood, Minn. School principal Dave Fjeldheim confirmed the school received the money and said he plans to use it to award scholarships to students. "We appreciate Jason's support, but we don't have anything to do with this lawsuit," Fjeldheim said.

Because of the controversy, Mueller ultimately received a piece of gum that Gonzalez chewed in front of the media prior to a game against the Rockies while the auction was still in progress. Gabbert kept the original wad of gum.

After Mueller received his Gonzalez-chewed gum, he agreed to send it to the same lab Gabbert brought his original sample to for DNA testing. The test by Identity Genetics in South Dakota provided to ESPN.com by Gabbert shows the two pieces of gum to be an exact match. Alex Kahler, owner of Identity Genetics, said he could not confirm that his company performed the test because of confidentiality rules and could not be provided without a court order.

Shortly after the auction began, it surfaced that Gabbert had been convicted in 1993 of attempted theft after impersonating Major League pitcher Aaron Sele. Gabbert said he believes Vigilante's comment, not his criminal history, hurt the selling price of the gum.

"Everybody has some kind of skeleton in their closet," Gabbert said. "I've had mine and I've done my apologizing. But that had nothing to do with the auction."

As a tort, an amount on damages is not specified in the suit, said Kraig Marton, Gabbert's attorney. If he wins, Gabbert said he will split the proceeds with the high school.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espn3.com.