Posted on: February 12, 2023, 01:13h.
Final up to date on: February 12, 2023, 01:13h.
Yasiel Puig, the previous Main League Baseball all-star who faces federal prices in connection to an unlawful sports activities betting investigation, has added a high-powered legal professional to his authorized workforce.
On Saturday, Ben Crump held a press convention close to the federal courthouse in Los Angeles to debate the case of the one-time Dodgers slugger charged with mendacity to investigators and obstructing justice. Crump, greatest identified for his work as a civil rights legal professional, has represented the households of Tyre Nichols, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, and Trayvon Martin.
Final November, federal prosecutors introduced a plea settlement with Puig, saying he admitted he lied to investigators when he denied inserting bets with a former minor league ballplayer who arrange his personal playing ring. Nevertheless, simply earlier than the listening to was to happen, Lisette Carnet, Puig’s sports activities agent, stated she had found new proof that led to him pulling out of the deal.
Crump accused prosecutors of creating a spectacle out of Puig’s case regardless that he was not an orchestrator within the scheme.
“The six individuals who have been working the playing ring, they’ve been charged, however Yasiel has gotten extra of a press assertion and launch from this (US Legal professional’s) workplace than the individuals who have been committing the heinous crimes that they have been concentrating on,” Crump stated Saturday.
Black Athletes Handled In another way, Puig’s Group Says
On Friday, Keri Axel, one other lawyer representing Puig, filed a movement to compel the US Legal professional’s workplace to supply info Puig’s workforce has requested. That features interview studies from the previous 5 years by the assigned investigators from the Division of Homeland Safety and the Inside Income Service who questioned Puig within the case. Puig’s workforce additionally needs data of communications between federal brokers and different witnesses concerned within the case pertaining to interviews and charging choices.
The US Legal professional’s workplace has denied the requests for these supplies.
The movement additionally notes that brokers investigating the sports activities betting ring handled White suspects far otherwise than the Black athletes additionally they questioned within the case.
Regardless of being the precise targets of the investigation, the Sand Islands Sports activities Brokers —none of whom are Black— have been constantly handled respectfully by the federal government, even the place they made materials misstatements of truth to authorities brokers or tried to destroy proof,” the movement states. “The investigative brokers gave these people a number of interviews to make clear their statements, and didn’t cost any of them with making false statements or obstruction of justice.”
The movement notes an October 2021 interview of a Black athlete, who was not Puig. In that interview, that athlete first couldn’t recall whether or not he positioned bets greater than three years earlier than however by the top of the questioning remembered that he had.
“The federal government agent conducting the interview then spontaneously admonished him that it was a criminal offense to make false statements and reminded him that Martha Stewart had been charged with a violation” of federal legislation, the movement states. “The IRS agent by no means did this when interviewing non-Black people, even when their failures of reminiscence have been extra intentional.”
Concerning the Yasiel Puig Sports activities Betting Case
Puig allegedly made wagers by way of individuals linked to Wayne Nix, a former minor league participant who ran a sports activities betting ring out of Costa Rica. Nix pleaded responsible to his involvement final summer time.
In response to authorities, Puig’s betting with Nix started in Could 2019, and inside a month, he had misplaced $283,000. Prosecutors discovered that Puig paid down his debt by $200,000 after which subsequently made almost 900 bets on basketball, soccer, and tennis matches between July and September of the identical 12 months.
None of Puig’s bets concerned baseball video games.
Axel and Carnet have additionally identified that Puig, who was born in Cuba and has a third-grade training, additionally suffers from consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction and post-traumatic stress dysfunction. All of that, they stated contributed to challenges he confronted in the course of the January 2022 interview with federal authorities. Axel’s movement accuses the federal government brokers of ending the interview when Puig tried to make use of his cellphone messages to reply questions.
Puig, 32, final performed in MLB in 2019. Since then, he has performed within the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and South Korea. Final 12 months for Kiwoom within the Korean Baseball Group, he belted 21 homers and drove in 73 runs whereas hitting .277 in 126 video games.
Puig is hoping to make a comeback within the majors. Spring Coaching begins later this month.
Puig formally entered a not responsible plea in his case this previous week. Had he gone by way of with the responsible plea, he would have paid a $55,000 superb and confronted a jail time period of not more than 5 years.
