Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer will not face criminal charges in Los Angeles over allegations he punched and choked a woman unconscious during rough sex.
The news he will not be charged was first reported by TMZ.
Last June, a woman sought a restraining order against Bauer over a sexual relationship that began in April.
Bauer’s attorney said the pitcher and the woman had “a brief and wholly consensual sexual relationship.”
The attorney claimed Bauer had text messages from the accuser “involving requests to be ‘choked out’ and slapped in the face” and that “the woman spent the night, and left without incident, continuing to message Mr. Bauer with friendly and flirtatious banter.”
Graphic photos were released by the accuser showing her with black eyes and bruises. Bauer claimed the photos were edited.
The 31-year-old, a star pitcher on the Dodgers who won the 2020 NL Cy Young award, was placed on MLB administrative leave in early July and did not play the rest of the season. Though the legal matter appears to be adjudicated, MLB’s investigation into the incident will continue.
“MLB’s investigation is ongoing and we will comment further at the appropriate time,” the league said in a statement.
Bauer said in a YouTube video Tuesday that he had consensual, rough sex with the woman at his Pasadena home on two occasions and addressed the allegations at length.
“While this is not the time or the place to address every single lie or falsehood that this woman or her lawyers made to the court, I do want to be crystal clear about a few things,” Bauer said. “I never punched this woman in the face. I never punched her in the vagina. I never scratched her face. I never had anal sex with her or sodomized her in any way. I never assaulted her in any way at any time. While we did have consensual rough sex, the disturbing acts and conduct that she described simply did not occur.”
Bauer signed a three-year, $102 million contract with the Dodgers last offseason.