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Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer escapes criminal charges in sexual assault case

After six months of waiting, the scandalous news between Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer and a San Diego woman was cleared that the 33-year-old pitcher will not be charged with sexual assault over two encounters that his representatives said were “wholly consensual” and the woman said were not by Los Angeles prosecutors.

Reasons and excuses point out to prosecutors inability to prove the San Diego woman’s accusations beyond a reasonable doubt, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday.

Bauer, the former Cincinnati Reds player back in 2020, was sent on an administrative paid leave on July 2 when the league heard about a constraining order from a woman.

After the woman reported the MLB’s Dodgers superstar choked her into unconsciousness, punched her repeatedly, and had anal sex with her without her consent during two sexual encounters, under the player’s union and Major League Baseball’s joint domestic violence and sexual assault policy, his paid leave was extended through the end of the season where he missed many games.

How it happened

The San Diego woman, whose name shall not be known, met the Hollywood-born star when she tagged him in a photo on Instagram while he pitched during a game against the San Diego Padres in April 2020. She was not expecting any response until what happened was on the contrary. The NL Cy Young Awardee responded to the message and they both had sexual encounters.

What once was consensual grew into violence as reported in documents. In the second incident in which she alleges Bauer repeatedly punching her and left her with two black eyes, a bloodied swollen lip, significant bruising, and scratching to one side of her face, she managed to include photographs showing her injuries.

In a four-day hearing after the request of protection was ordered by the woman, Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman of Los Angeles Superior Court denied the extension of her request because she believed that Bauer honored the woman’s boundaries. Nevertheless, Saltman thinks that the baseball player could have been violating her accidentally because she did not quite express them clearly.

The woman “was not ambiguous about wanting rough sex in the parties’ first encounter, and wanting rougher sex in the second encounter.”

“We consider in a sexual encounter that when a woman says no she should be believed,” Gould-Saltman said, “so what should we do when she says yes?”

Next step for Bauer

Bauer joined his hometown Dodgers earlier this year on a $102 million, three-year contract. He had a record of 8-2 and a 2.59 ERA in 17 appearances before being placed on leave.

Under the basis of the policy that states even ‘a single incident of abusive behavior’, this could get the rising star into suspension of any length it chooses. A suspension could range from 15 games to one full season of 162 games. To top it all off, the woman provided medical records in which doctors diagnosed her with “assault by manual strangulation” and “acute head injury”. The pitcher’s legal team has approved the accuracy of the medical assessment. With that being said, it was evidenced enough to take the case into matter.

Although much proof was given by the woman, the right-hander pitcher remains in denial.

“When she left, she certainly did not look anything like the photos that were later attached to her family court declaration and circulated by her lawyers to the media.”

Bauer added in a video on Tuesday, “I never assaulted her in any way, at any time. And, while we did have consensual rough sex, the disturbing acts and conduct she described simply did not occur.”


Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball as a member club of the National League West division. (wikipedia)


Trevor Bauer

Trevor Andrew Bauer is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball . He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Indians, (wikipedia)