Former Dodger Yasiel Puig to plead guilty for lying during illegal gambling investigation
Former Major League Baseball player Yasiel Puig is set to plead guilty to lying to federal investigators about bets on sporting events that he placed with an illegal gambling operation, according to court documents that were unsealed on Monday.
Puig, 31, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers organization in 2012 after defecting from Cuba. He remained with the team until 2018 when he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. He was again traded the following year, ending up with the then-Cleveland Indians until he transitioned to international baseball. He currently played with the South Korean KBO League's Kiwoom Heroes.
He has agreed to plead guilty to one count of making false statements and to pay a fine of at least $55,000. Puig is expected to appear in court on Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles. He faces up to five years in prison.
"Under our system of justice, no one is above the law," said Martin Estrada, United States Attorney for the Central District of California. "The integrity of our nation's criminal justice system depends on people telling the truth, and those who fail to abide by this simple principal must face consequences."
According to the plea agreement, which was filed in late August, Puig began placing bets on games in May 2019, while with Cleveland. He made the bets with an unidentified person, only referred to as "Agent 1" in the plea agreement. That person worked for an illegal gambling business that was operated by Newport Coast resident Wayne Joseph Nix.
Nix, a former Minor League Baseball player, was charged with one count of conspiring to operate an illegal sports gambling business, and one count of filing a false tax return in March 2022. He pleaded guilty in April and his sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2023.
After just a month of interactions with "Agent 1," Puig had amassed $282,900 in sports gambling losses with Nix's illegal gambling operation.
He was then instructed by Agent 1 and another person, identified as "Individual B" in the affidavit, to wire transfer payable or write a check to another client of Nix's, referred to as "Individual A," whom the business owed $200,000 in winnings.
On June 25, 2019, Puig withdrew $200,000 from a Bank of America in Glendale before purchasing two cashier's checks - worth $100,000 a piece - both made payable to Individual A. However, the checks were not immediately sent due to some sort of dispute over the balance, which caused Nix to refuse Puig access to his betting websites until the debt was repaid.
Eventually, Puig paid the $200,000 debt and was allowed access once again. From July 2019 to September 2019, he is believed to have placed 899 bets on tennis, football and basketball games.
It was never mentioned whether Puig bet on baseball games or not.
During an interview with federal investigators in January, Puig lied on several occasions, including when he "falsely stated that he only knew Agent 1 from baseball and that he never discussed gambling with him, when in fact Puig discussed sports betting with Agent 1 hundreds of times on the telephone and via text message," according to the press release from the Department of Justice.
They showed him one of the cashier's checks that was made payable to Individual A during the interview, when he falsely claimed that he did not know the person who told him to send the checks, also stating that he had lost $200,000 on a bet placed with an unknown person on an unknown website.
Puig admitted to lying to the federal agents in an audio message sent to Individual B via WhatsApp in March.
Prosecutors also filed a plea agreement for another former MLB player and Panorama City resident, Erik Kristian Hiljus, 49, on Monday.
"He agreed to plead guilty to two counts of subscribing to false tax returns and will face up to six years in federal prison upon entering his guilty plea. Hiljus was an agent for Nix's illegal gambling business but did not work with Puig," the statement said.