Yasiel Puig claimed racial bias in sports betting probe. Feds say he was just trying to avoid trial
LA TimesFormer Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, center, at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Feb. 11. Federal prosecutors are rejecting claims of anti-Black bias in their criminal case against former Dodger Yasiel Puig, calling the allegations part of a last-ditch attempt to avoid trial — one that also included a “personal appeal” to the prosecutors’ boss with a request that it be kept secret. At a news conference and in court filings, Puig’s attorneys have alleged federal prosecutors were “inclined to view Black men as untruthful” and treated white defendants in the investigation differently. Those attempts included a “private personal appeal” to Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California and the boss of the federal prosecutors in Puig’s criminal case. Although, according to prosecutors, there had been three previous attempts to refer the case for diversion, the letter to Estrada was the first time Puig’s defense attorneys alleged “selective prosecution issues and the implicit biases of government agents,” they said.
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