Free-agent outfielder Yasiel Puig issued a statement Tuesday night addressing an allegation by a woman who said Puig sexually assaulted her in 2018 in a Staples Center bathroom.
"I am speaking out now to defend my name against false and malicious allegations by a woman who claims I assaulted her in 2018," Puig said in the statement. "Let me be clear and set the record straight once and for all: These allegations are totally false, the evidence proves they are false, and I look forward to all the truth and facts coming out. ... The fact is that I had consensual sex with a woman I met at a Lakers game after she propositioned me. Afterward, we talked about going out together, but she said she did not want her fiance to find out. We messaged each other afterward and planned to get together again, but we never did. She's now suing me based on completely made-up allegations."
Attorneys representing the woman issued the following statement from Taylor Rayfield, a partner at Manly, Stewart & Finaldi:
Mr. Puig and his attorneys are making false and defamatory statements about the facts of this case to the press, in a transparently desperate attempt to curry favor with the league.
The simple fact of the matter is that our client never engaged in consensual sexual activity with Mr. Puig—not at the Staples Center Chairman’s Club, and not anywhere else. She was in the Chairman’s Club attending a basketball game with her fiancé, when she met Mr. Puig and they exchanged information, our client believed, for business purposes. Mr. Puig then, however, secretly followed her into a restroom, attacked her and forcibly held her while he masturbated until she finally broke free and fled the restroom. Our client and her fiancée immediately left, and she informed her fiancé about the attack. Although Puig claims our client waited two years to file this case, in order to deprive him of evidence to defend himself, the truth is that our client retained us within a year of the attack and did not file the case earlier because Puig’s attorneys asked us not to file.
The allegation has never been that Puig and our client engaged in sexual intercourse in the restroom. This claim of consensual sex was recently fabricated by Mr. Puig in an attempt to explain away his text messages to my client, immediately after the alleged attack, warning her that what happened was 'private between them.'
Mr. Puig’s statement that they messaged one another after the attack, planning to get together, contradicts the evidence. After Puig allegedly sexually assaulted our client, he sent her at least 18 text messages begging to see her. Fearful of a further attack or retribution by Puig, our client attempted to de-escalate his behavior by providing curt responses to the texts and later ignoring him. Our client did nothing to encourage this behavior.
This is another event in a pattern of violent and brutish behavior by Puig, while attempting to breathe new life into his dying career.
Further decimating Puig’s false statements regarding the attack, Jane Doe, Mr. Puig’s accuser confirms, 'I am an out and proud lesbian and have been during my entire adult life. My female fiancée and I were enjoying a Lakers game at the Staples Center when this attack occurred. The notion that I would leave my fiancé, and run off into a bathroom, so someone I did not know could do this to me, or do something worse, is demeaning and ridiculous.'
Puig, who turned 30 in December, became a free agent after the 2019 season. He did not play in Major League Baseball last season.
A report in March by ESPN.com's John Barr stated that the outfielder remains without a job - at least in part, per a source - because of the allegation, adding that MLB investigators interviewed the woman.
"Nobody wants the headache," the front-office source told ESPN, according to Barr.
In a televised interview a week earlier, Puig's agent, Rachel Luba, said the goal and plan were for Puig to sign with an MLB team in the near future. Luba also represents Bauer, who brought the Reds a compensation pick after the first round of the 2021 MLB Draft when he agreed to a three-year, $102 million deal with the Dodgers.
In 100 games for the Reds during the 2019 season, Puig hit .252 with 22 home runs and 61 RBIs. In 207 plate appearances for the Indians after the Reds sent Puig to Cleveland as part of a three-team trade that brought 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati, Puig hit .297 with two homers and 23 RBIs.
MLB analyst and former Reds general manager Jim Bowden reported in January that Puig was a candidate to join the New York Yankees, the Kansas City Royals or the Miami Marlins.
Later, MLB Network's Jon Heyman reported that the Marlins were not pursuing Puig, and added that there was no evidence the Yankees had interest in Puig.
MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported earlier in the month that Puig was drawing interest from multiple Major League Baseball teams, including the Yankees, the Marlins, the Boston Red Sox, the Houston Astros and the Baltimore Orioles.
Puig announced via Twitter last July that he tested positive for COVID-19, and his deal with the Atlanta Braves that had been reported earlier that week was off after the two sides failed to reach a formal agreement.
Puig played for the Dodgers for six seasons before the Reds acquired him in Dec. 2018 with Kyle Farmer, Matt Kemp, Alex Wood and cash for Jeter Downs, Josiah Gray and Homer Bailey.
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