Former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig could face trial next month in sports betting case

Former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig could face trial Jan. 10.

Puig has been charged with making false statements in a federal investigation of an illegal sports betting operation. He had agreed to plead guilty, but his attorney said Wednesday he would withdraw from that agreement and plead not guilty.

Under the plea agreement, Puig would have been eligible for probation and had agreed to pay a fine of at least $55,000. If Puig is convicted at trial, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Attorneys for Puig and the government agreed to ask the U.S. District Court for a Jan. 10 trial date, according to a court filing Friday. The parties estimated the trial would take about five days.

In a statement Wednesday, the attorney for Puig, Keri Axel, said that “significant new evidence” prompted the change in plea. Axel did not say in the statement what that new evidence might be, and no such evidence was included in Friday’s court filing.

In the plea agreement that Puig signed before changing his position, the government alleged Puig lied when he said he had never discussed betting with an unnamed agent, described in the plea deal only as “a former collegiate baseball player and private baseball coach.” In fact, the government alleged, Puig had lost $282,900 on sports bets placed with that agent in the first half of 2019.

In the second half of 2019, the government alleged, Puig made “899 bets on tennis, football, and basketball games” through an offshore website. There is no evidence in the plea agreement that Puig, who played for the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians in 2019 and now plays in South Korea, bet on baseball.