Advertisement

Yasiel Puig's accuser fires back on his claim they had consensual sex: 'I am an out and proud lesbian'

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 11:  Yasiel Puig #66 of the Cleveland Indians walks off the infield during a game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on September 11, 2019 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Yasiel Puig has not played in an MLB game since 2019. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

An attorney representing the woman accusing Yasiel Puig of sexual assault responded to the outfielder's denial on Wednesday, per the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The lawsuit against Puig was filed by the alleged victim last year, with claims that he sexually assaulted the woman in a bathroom at a Los Angeles Lakers game in 2018. Puig released a response via Twitter on Tuesday, with his attorney calling the allegations "provable lies."

Puig did not deny an encounter with the woman, but claimed it was consensual sex and that she had propositioned him and discussed going out with him on another occasion. His attorney claimed to have Instagram messages and text messages as evidence:

Puig remains a free agent, with his last appearance in an MLB game coming with the Cleveland Indians in 2019. He had a deal with the Atlanta Braves for the 2020 season, but ended up not joining the team after contracting COVID-19.

Yasiel Puig's accuser responds to his sexual assault denial

One day after Puig's denial, the alleged victim's attorney Taylor Rayfield released a lengthy statement claiming he and his attorneys made "false and defamatory statements" in a "transparently desperate attempt to curry favor with the league."

The statement included a quote from the accuser, in which she identified herself as an out lesbian with a female fiancée (Puig's statement referred to her significant other with the masculine fiancé):

'I am an out and proud lesbian and have been during my entire adult life. My female fiancée and I were enjoying a Lakers game at the Staples Center when this attack occurred. The notion that I would leave my fiancé, and run off into a bathroom, so someone I did not know could do this to me, or do something worse, is demeaning and ridiculous.'

Rayfield said her client met Puig and exchanged information with him in the Chairman’s Club at Staples Center, but was later followed by Puig into a bathroom where he allegedly held her while masturbating. She claimed her client and her fiancée immediately left the game and retained legal counsel within a year of the attack, but held off on filing a lawsuit until 2020 at the request of Puig's attorneys.

Rayfield also took issue with Puig's team painting the messages between him and the accuser as exonerating, saying such a story "contradicts the evidence."

The full statement can be seen below, from the Enquirer:

Mr. Puig and his attorneys are making false and defamatory statements about the facts of this case to the press, in a transparently desperate attempt to curry favor with the league.

The simple fact of the matter is that our client never engaged in consensual sexual activity with Mr. Puig—not at the Staples Center Chairman’s Club, and not anywhere else. She was in the Chairman’s Club attending a basketball game with her fiancé, when she met Mr. Puig and they exchanged information, our client believed, for business purposes. Mr. Puig then, however, secretly followed her into a restroom, attacked her and forcibly held her while he masturbated until she finally broke free and fled the restroom. Our client and her fiancée immediately left, and she informed her fiancé about the attack. Although Puig claims our client waited two years to file this case, in order to deprive him of evidence to defend himself, the truth is that our client retained us within a year of the attack and did not file the case earlier because Puig’s attorneys asked us not to file.

The allegation has never been that Puig and our client engaged in sexual intercourse in the restroom. This claim of consensual sex was recently fabricated by Mr. Puig in an attempt to explain away his text messages to my client, immediately after the alleged attack, warning her that what happened was 'private between them.'

Mr. Puig’s statement that they messaged one another after the attack, planning to get together, contradicts the evidence. After Puig allegedly sexually assaulted our client, he sent her at least 18 text messages begging to see her. Fearful of a further attack or retribution by Puig, our client attempted to de-escalate his behavior by providing curt responses to the texts and later ignoring him. Our client did nothing to encourage this behavior.

This is another event in a pattern of violent and brutish behavior by Puig, while attempting to breathe new life into his dying career.

Further decimating Puig’s false statements regarding the attack, Jane Doe, Mr. Puig’s accuser confirms, 'I am an out and proud lesbian and have been during my entire adult life. My female fiancée and I were enjoying a Lakers game at the Staples Center when this attack occurred. The notion that I would leave my fiancé, and run off into a bathroom, so someone I did not know could do this to me, or do something worse, is demeaning and ridiculous.'

More from Yahoo Sports: