Free-agent outfielder Yasiel Puig, who remains unsigned and has not played in MLB since the 2019 season, released a statement on Twitter this week in which he denied accusations against him in a sexual assault lawsuit.
In part, Puig's statement, which was released in collaboration with his attorneys, reads:
"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 stated. "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 facts and the truth coming out."
In the statement, Puig acknowledges a sexual encounter with the plaintiff but characterizes the encounter as consensual and asserts that "she propositioned me."
Here's the statement in full:
The woman, who is not identified in court documents, filed suit in October of last year alleging that Puig sexually assaulted her in a Staples Center bathroom following a Los Angeles Lakers game on Oct. 31, 2018, when Puig had just completed what turned out to be his final season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The plaintiff accuses Puig of sexual battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and false imprisonment. Specifically, the suit against Puig alleges that he grabbed the woman, forced her into a bathroom in the Chairman's Room lounge, tried to pull off her clothes, touched her inappropriately, and then pinned her with one arm while he committed a lewd act.
In response to Puig's public denials, the plaintiff, identified in court documents by the alias Jane Roe, released her own statement through her attorneys to the Cincinnati Enquirer in which she reiterates her accusations and denies that the encounter was consensual and the result of her propositioning Puig. It reads in part:
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.'
In March, ESPN reported that MLB had interviewed the accuser but the league has not yet to take any action under the relevant policies because of the accuser's desire of anonymity and to take into account evidence from the suit.