LOS ANGELES — Former Los Angeles Dodgers participant Yasiel Puig will plead responsible to mendacity to federal investigators who had been probing an unlawful sports activities playing operation, prosecutors in Southern California stated Monday.
Puig, 31, will plead responsible to at least one rely of creating false statements, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California stated in an announcement.
That cost carries as much as 5 years in jail, however sentencing tips cited in plea settlement paperwork counsel a sentence of far lower than that. Puig can even pay a wonderful of not less than $55,000, the prosecutors’ workplace stated.
Puig was charged and a plea settlement was filed Aug. 29, however the case was unsealed Monday, in keeping with courtroom information. He’s due in courtroom Tuesday.
Neither the assertion from federal prosecutors’ workplace nor courtroom paperwork say that Puig gambled on baseball.
An lawyer for Puig didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Monday night time.
The felony case concerned a sports activities betting operation run by Wayne Nix, who officers stated pleaded responsible in April.
In a January interview, Puig lied and stated he by no means mentioned sports activities betting with an individual working for Nix’s operation, when that particular person had helped Puig place bets, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.
Puig additionally falsely stated he positioned bets via a web site, and Puig stated he didn’t know the individuals concerned when Puig paid off $200,000 in playing money owed he’d accrued, when he did know them, the paperwork say.
The sports activities talked about by prosecutors had been tennis, soccer and basketball video games.
Puig performed within the outfield for the Dodgers from 2013 via the 2018 season. In December of 2018 he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 2019, and now performs baseball in South Korea, for the Kiwoom Heroes.
Nix, of Newport Coast in Orange County, California, pleaded responsible to at least one rely every of conspiracy to function an unlawful sports activities playing enterprise and of submitting a false tax return. Sentencing is scheduled for March, the Justice Division stated.
Sports activities betting is unlawful in California. Whereas the U.S. Supreme Court docket in 2018 struck down a regulation that had banned it in a lot of the nation, states should legalize it.
Two poll propositions that may have introduced sports activities wagering to California, one centered on Native American casinos and the opposite on on-line wagering, had been defeated within the Nov. 8 election.
