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 investors.
Puig now faces up to 20 years in federal prison, though any sentence could be far more lenient. Jurors 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.
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.
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 a 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.
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.
Now Puig is facing prison time. It is unclear what the government will request of Judge Dolly M. Gee ahead of sentencing.
This story will be updated.