Former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig now says he is not guilty in sports betting case

Former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig has withdrawn from an settlement to plead responsible to a cost of mendacity to federal investigators in a sports activities betting probe and has determined to plead not responsible, his representatives mentioned Wednesday.

“I need to clear my identify,” Puig mentioned in an announcement. “I by no means ought to have agreed to plead responsible to against the law I didn’t commit.”

Beneath the plea settlement, Puig would have been eligible for probation and had agreed to pay a effective of not less than $55,000. With out the settlement, Puig may face trial and a most sentence of 5 years in jail.

Puig’s lawyer, Keri Axel, mentioned in an announcement that “vital new proof” prompted the change in plea. Axel didn’t say within the assertion what that new proof may be, and he or she instructed The Occasions by means of a spokesman: “We’re ready to publicly share that data within the acceptable discussion board and on the acceptable time.”

Nonetheless, in a court docket listening to final week, she steered that messages left for Puig by an agent and his affiliate raised the likelihood that Puig might need been entrapped.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeff Mitchell, one in all two prosecutors engaged on the case, has mentioned prosecutors have made their proof obtainable to Puig’s protection workforce.

Of the Zoom interview during which Puig is alleged to have lied to investigators, Axel mentioned: “Mr. Puig, who has a third-grade training, had untreated mental-health points, and didn’t have his personal interpreter or felony authorized counsel with him.”

The federal government alleges Puig lied when he mentioned he had by no means mentioned betting with the unnamed agent, described within the plea deal solely as “a former collegiate baseball participant and personal baseball coach.” In actual fact, the federal government alleged, Puig had misplaced $282,900 on sports activities bets positioned with that agent within the first half of 2019.

Within the second half of 2019, the federal government alleges, Puig made “899 bets on tennis, soccer, and basketball video games” by means of an offshore web site. There is no such thing as a proof within the plea settlement that Puig, who performed for the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians in 2019 and now performs in South Korea, guess on baseball.