When an agent from the Inside Income Service first questioned former Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig as a part of a sports activities playing investigation, the agent opened with a stern warning: When you lie, you may be charged with a federal crime.
That aggressive posture, legal professionals for Puig have alleged in courtroom filings, remained till investigators abruptly ended the interview when Puig requested to evaluation previous data to refresh his reminiscence.
Puig and his protection group pointed to this and federal authorities’ alleged dealings with different Black people entangled within the case as proof of racial bias. They argue that white defendants within the case have been handled extra benignly and their credibility not challenged.
Puig, who final 12 months withdrew from an settlement to plead responsible to mendacity to federal authorities within the investigation, indicated at a information convention Saturday that he’ll combat the costs at trial after pleading not responsible Friday morning in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse.
“They didn’t consider his cultural background, his private experiences and even his capability to know the method,” Puig’s agent, Lisette Carnet of Leona Sports activities Company, mentioned on the information convention. “They gave him one interview, and through that interview when he tried to rehabilitate his statements after additional reminiscence recall, they shut it down.”
She was joined on the steps of the downtown federal courthouse by Puig’s attorneys, Keri Curtis Axel and Benjamin Crump. Puig, who was additionally current, learn a press release in his native Spanish.
Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has constructed a nationwide status representing victims of police violence, mentioned he joined the case as a result of he wished to proceed holding “a mirror to America’s face to point out the bias” inherent to the justice system.
After backing out of the plea settlement, Puig, 32, now faces a cost of obstruction of justice along with the unique cost of constructing false statements to federal officers, based on a superseding indictment.
In an instance of the bias Puig allegedly confronted, his legal professionals cited in courtroom papers an unnamed worker from a sports activities playing operation, Sand Islands Sports activities, who made “demonstrably false” statements about his communications with Puig, however wasn’t admonished by federal brokers. The federal investigation is alleged to contain different high-profile athletes, however parts of the case are below protecting order.
In keeping with federal prosecutors, Puig lied when he instructed investigators in a Jan. 27, 2022, interview that he had by no means mentioned betting on sporting occasions with an unnamed worker working at an unlawful playing enterprise run by one other defendant, Wayne Joseph Nix. In actual fact, 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.
Puig, the submitting mentioned, suffers from post-traumatic stress dysfunction and a spotlight deficit hyperactivity dysfunction that made it troublesome for him to recall years-old particulars about “sure verify funds.” His attorneys mentioned his restricted formal education — he has the equal of a third-grade training after being despatched to Cuba’s government-run baseball academy on the age of 9 — additionally made it difficult for him to know what he was being requested.
Axel, a former federal prosecutor in Southern California, mentioned that she had requested the U.S. legal professional’s workplace for data “in regards to the patterns and practices of the workplace,” together with any pertaining to implicit bias coaching it gives to prosecutors “and the charging selections they’ve made on this and different earlier instances.” She mentioned the latest movement was step one in making a proper movement to dismiss the case.
A listening to to handle the difficulty is tentatively set for March 15.
A spokesman for the U.S. legal professional’s workplace mentioned Saturday night that prosecutors would reply to the movement by way of courtroom filings, and he declined to remark in any other case.
Instances workers author Salvador Hernandez contributed to this report.
