Ex-Dodger Yasiel Puig faces new charge in sports gambling probe

Former Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, who final yr withdrew from an settlement to plead responsible to mendacity to federal authorities in a sports activities playing investigation, is now going through a brand new cost within the case.

Puig, 32, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in downtown Los Angeles on one depend of creating false statements and one depend of obstruction of justice, in line with a federal case docket and a superseding indictment.

In November, the Cuban-born baseball participant had agreed to plead guilty to 1 depend of creating false statements and agreed to pay a high quality of not less than $55,000. He would have been eligible for probation below the settlement.

However weeks later, Puig withdrew from the plea deal.

“I wish to clear my title,” Puig mentioned in a Nov. 30 assertion. “I by no means ought to have agreed to plead responsible to against the law I didn’t commit.”

Federal authorities had been investigating an unlawful sports activities playing operation run by Wayne Nix, a former minor-league baseball player who lives in Newport Seashore, when Puig allegedly lied in interviews about his involvement, in line with the preliminary plea settlement.

Based on federal prosecutors, Puig lied when he informed investigators in a Jan. 27, 2022, interview that he had by no means mentioned betting with an unnamed agent working for Nix, described within the plea deal solely as “a former collegiate baseball participant and personal baseball coach.” The truth is, the federal government alleges, Puig had incurred debt of greater than $280,000 on sports activities bets positioned with that agent within the first half of 2019.

After paying off a part of the debt, the federal government alleges, Puig made “899 bets on tennis, soccer, and basketball video games” by an offshore web site related to Nix’s ring.

There isn’t any proof within the plea settlement that Puig, who performed for the Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians in his Main League Baseball profession, wager on baseball.

Puig’s legal professional, Keri Axel, mentioned in a November assertion that “important new proof” had prompted the withdrawal from the plea settlement. Axel didn’t say within the assertion what that new proof is perhaps, and she or he informed The Occasions by a spokesman: “We’re ready to publicly share that info within the applicable discussion board and on the applicable time.”

Nonetheless, in a courtroom listening to earlier that month, she suggested that messages left for Puig by the unnamed agent and his affiliate raised the chance that Puig may need been entrapped.

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

Occasions employees author Invoice Shaikin contributed to this report.