Former Dodger Yasiel Puig alleges anti-Black bias behind criminal charges

When an agent from the Internal Revenue Service first questioned former Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig as part of a sports gambling investigation, the agent opened with a stern warning: If you lie, you will be charged with a federal crime.

That aggressive posture, lawyers for Puig have alleged in court filings, remained until investigators abruptly ended the interview when Puig asked to review old records to refresh his memory.

Puig and his defense team pointed to this and federal authorities’ alleged dealings with other Black individuals entangled in the case as evidence of racial bias. They argue that white defendants in the case were treated more benignly and their credibility not challenged.

Puig, who last year withdrew from an agreement to plead guilty to lying to federal authorities in the investigation, indicated at a news conference Saturday that he will fight the charges at trial after pleading not guilty Friday morning in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

“They didn’t take into account his cultural background, his personal experiences or even his capacity to understand the process,� Puig’s agent, Lisette Carnet of Leona Sports Agency, said at the news conference. “They gave him one interview, and during that interview when he tried to rehabilitate his statements after further memory 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 also present, read a statement in his native Spanish.

Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has built a national reputation representing victims of police violence, said he joined the case because he wanted to continue holding “a mirror to America’s face to show the bias� inherent to the justice system.

After backing out of the plea agreement, Puig, 32, now faces a charge of obstruction of justice in addition to the original charge of making false statements to federal officials, according to a superseding indictment.

In an example of the bias Puig allegedly faced, his lawyers cited in court papers an unnamed employee from a sports gambling operation, Sand Islands Sports, who made “demonstrably false� statements about his communications with Puig, but wasn’t admonished by federal agents. The federal investigation is said to involve other high-profile athletes, but portions of the case are under protective order.

According to federal prosecutors, Puig lied when he told investigators in a Jan. 27, 2022, interview that he had never discussed betting on sporting events with an unnamed employee working at an illegal gambling business run by another defendant, Wayne Joseph Nix. In fact, the government alleges, Puig had incurred debt of more than $280,000 on sports bets placed with that agent in the first half of 2019.

Puig, the filing said, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that made it difficult for him to recall years-old details about “certain check payments.� His attorneys said his limited formal schooling — he has the equivalent of a third-grade education after being sent to Cuba’s government-run baseball academy at the age of 9 — also made it challenging for him to understand what he was being asked.

Axel, a former federal prosecutor in Southern California, said that she had asked the U.S. attorney’s office for records “concerning the patterns and practices of the office,� including any pertaining to implicit bias training it provides to prosecutors “and the charging decisions they’ve made in this and other previous cases.� She said the recent motion was the first step in making a formal motion to dismiss the case.

A hearing to address the issue is tentatively set for March 15.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said Saturday evening that prosecutors would respond to the motion through court filings, and he declined to comment otherwise.

Times staff writer Salvador Hernandez contributed to this report.