By JAIMIE DING
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury has discovered former main league outfielder Yasiel Puig responsible of obstruction of justice and mendacity to federal officers investigating an unlawful playing operation, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned Friday.
The decision got here after a multiweek trial that featured testimony from Main League Baseball officers and Donny Kadokawa, a Hawaii baseball coach that Puig positioned bets via. Puig now faces as much as 20 years in federal jail and is scheduled to be sentenced Could 26.
Puig’s lawyer, Keri Curtis Axel, mentioned the federal government did not show key parts of its case and that she plans to boost post-trial motions.
“We stay up for clearing Yasiel’s identify,” Axel mentioned.
Puig, 35, initially pled guilty to a felony cost of mendacity to federal brokers investigating an unlawful playing operation. He acknowledged in an August 2022 plea settlement that he wracked up greater than $280,000 in losses over a couple of months in 2019 whereas wagering on tennis, soccer and basketball video games via a 3rd get together who labored for an unlawful playing operation run by Wayne Nix, a former minor league baseball participant.
Nix pled responsible in 2022 to conspiracy to function an unlawful playing enterprise and subscribing to a false tax return. He’s nonetheless awaiting sentencing.
Authorities mentioned Puig positioned no less than 900 bets via Nix-controlled betting web sites and thru a person who labored for Nix.
Prosecutors mentioned that in a January 2022 interview with federal investigators, Puig denied realizing concerning the nature of his bets, who he was betting with, and the circumstances of paying his playing money owed.
However he modified his tune months later, saying that he was switching his plea to not responsible due to “vital new proof,” in keeping with an announcement from his attorneys in Los Angeles.
“I wish to clear my identify,” Puig mentioned within the assertion. “I by no means ought to have agreed to plead responsible to a criminal offense I didn’t commit.”
The federal government argued that he deliberately misled the federal investigators. They performed in court docket audio clips of Puig talking English and introduced professional witnesses to testify on Puig’s cognitive skills, the New York Occasions reported.
His attorneys mentioned that Puig, who has a third-grade training, had untreated mental-health points and didn’t have his personal interpreter or legal authorized counsel with him in the course of the interview with federal investigators the place he purportedly lied.
Puig’s former lawyer Steven Gebelin testified that in the course of the January 2022 interview, Puig tried to be useful in answering the investigators’ questions and the interpreter struggled with Puig’s Spanish language dialect, in keeping with the New York Occasions.
Puig batted .277 with 132 residence runs and 415 RBIs whereas showing in seven main league seasons, the primary six with the Dodgers, the place he earned an All-Star choice in 2014.
Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully known as Puig the “wild horse” for his on-field antics and expertise at a younger age, becoming a member of MLB at 22, a 12 months after escaping his residence nation of Cuba.
He performed for the Cincinnati Reds and the Cleveland Indians in 2019 earlier than turning into a free agent. He then performed within the Mexican League and final 12 months he signed a one-year, $1 million contact with South Korea’s Kiwoom Heroes.
