Crime

Former Los Angeles Dodgers Player Yasiel Puig Denies Sexual Assault Allegations

The athlete was accused last year of assaulting a woman in a bathroom at the Staples Center in 2018

Published on April 14, 2021 05:31 PM

Yasiel Puig is denying an accusation that he sexually assaulted a woman at the Staples Center in 2018.

The former Los Angeles Dodgers player, 30, released a statement with his lawyers on Wednesday, marking the first time he has publicly spoken about the allegations against him since they were brought by an anonymous woman in an October 2020 civil lawsuit. His lawyers denied the claims in the lawsuit at the time.

"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," Puig said.

The athlete, who is currently a free agent, claimed in his statement that his accuser had approached him and didn't want to continue their relationship because she was engaged.

"The fact is 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 fiancé to find out," Puig said. "We messaged each other afterward and planned to get together again, but never did. She's now suing me based on completely made-up allegations."

The woman, whose identity remains anonymous and is identified as Jane Roe in the lawsuit, alleged last year that Puig assaulted her in a bathroom at the Staples Center in October 2018.

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According to the lawsuit, Roe was "forced into a bathroom and Yasiel Puig grabbed at her trying to take her clothes off, touched her sexual organs during this struggle, and eventually pinned her with 1 arm and used his other to stroke his own penis, exposing himself, and eventually ejaculating," Deadline previously reported.

Roe reportedly said in the lawsuit that she did not know Puig other than briefly meeting him in a VIP lounge at the Lakers game.

In a press release Wednesday, Puig's lawyers said that Roe was the one who "sought out Mr. Puig in person at the Chairman's Club and asked him to go into a bathroom with her for a consensual sexual encounter."

When Roe filed her lawsuit last year, she said that at the time of the alleged assault she "was in complete shock because it all happened so fast," according to Deadline.

"It was terrifying and humiliating and I don't want anyone else to have to suffer the same kind of trauma that I'm experiencing," she said.

The woman's attorney, Taylor Rayfield, said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE Wednesday that "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."

Rayfield said that the woman exchanged information with Puig "for business purposes," she believed at the time.

The attorney also said that while Puig and his legal team have emphasized the two-year period between the alleged incident and the filing of the lawsuit, "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."

In a statement through Rayfield, the woman added: "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."

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.