LOS ANGELES — Ex-Dodgers star Yasiel Puig was found guilty of obstructing justice and providing false statements to investigators, ending a years-long saga stemming from one voluntary interview with Federal authorities.
Puig now faces up to 15 years in federal prison, though any sentence could be far more lenient. Jurors took most of two days to unanimously agree on Puig’s guilt. The 35-year-old’s charges related to a Jan. 27, 2022 interview with investigators, who were looking into an illegal sports gambling operation.
“He’s shocked and disappointed,” Puig’s attorney, Keri Curtis Axel, told The Athletic after the verdict. “We felt the government failed to prove key elements.”
Puig declined comment through his representative, and waited in the defense’s conference room adjacent to the courtroom following the conviction.
Assistant U.S. attorney Michael Morse declined to comment after the verdict.
The trial spanned 12 days in court, and included more than a dozen witnesses taking the stand in the First Street Federal Courthouse in the Central District of California. Puig’s sentencing is set for May 26.
The government requested that Puig be remanded, stating their belief that he was a “flight risk.” Judge Dolly M. Gee disagreed, stating Puig can remain out on bond, but would have to check in with the court before any international travel.
While much of the case’s testimony and evidence surrounded the wide-ranging illegal gambling operation Puig admitted to participating in, the question at hand was simply whether Puig was honest when investigators questioned him about it.
The interview in question was not video or audio recorded, and Puig was not required to attend or answer questions. He was not the target of any investigation at the time, with prosecutors acknowledging that betting with an illegal gambling operation is not a federal crime.
They wanted Puig to provide information about his bookmaker, Wayne Nix, who had been working on behalf of an illegal sports betting website known as Sand Island Sports. Nix pleaded guilty in 2022 to one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of subscribing to a false tax return, and is still awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors argued that Puig knowingly lied to investigators about placing bets through intermediary Donny Kadokawa, allegedly telling them he only knew Kadokawa through baseball. The government also played surreptitiously recorded audio of Puig saying that he’d declined to cooperate with prosecutors during the meeting in question.
Puig’s defense argued that he attempted to cooperate fully, but that the government wasn’t interested in his answers. Defense attorneys also suggested that the interpreter for the interview struggled to understand his dialect of Spanish, and that Puig had cognitive issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, which impacted his ability to fully understand the line of questioning.
One juror told attorneys after the proceedings ended that an “omission of the truth” by Puig led to the guilty verdict, and that there was overwhelming evidence that Puig understood he was knowingly not telling the truth during his 2022 meeting with investigators.
Puig initially agreed to plead guilty to the charges in August 2022, which likely would have led to probation and a fine. However, he backed out of the agreement in November 2022, before he officially entered the guilty plea to the court.
The government had previously argued that his guilty plea should stand, resulting in years of litigation, and delaying this trial until 2026.
Axel, Puig’s attorney, said that his defense team still has motions to argue before the judge before a formal appeal is necessary. In particular, Axel will argue that the government never adequately proved the crime occurred in the central district of California.
The government declined to say how much, if any, prison time they will request for Puig.
Puig played for three MLB teams in a career that lasted from 2013 to 2019. He finished second for the 2013 Rookie of the Year Award, and was a 2014 All-Star when with the Los Angeles Dodgers.