(KTLA) — Prosecutors in Arizona have filed felony charges against a woman who accused former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer of sexual assault, alleging she defrauded the former Cy Young winner.
The charges come after a Grand Jury in Maricopa County handed down an indictment against Darcy Adanna Esemonu on one count of fraud and one count of theft by extortion.
She is due to be arraigned on April 26.
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Esemonu sued Bauer in 2023, alleging he raped and impregnated her, and demanded he pay her more than $1 million to terminate the pregnancy.
He eventually paid her “thousands of dollars” that Esemonu used for an “all-expense paid” trip to Philadelphia to get LASIK surgery, his lawyers claimed in a countersuit.
In a videotaped statement released Tuesday, Bauer acknowledged having sex with Esemonu in 2020, which he claims was consensual.
“She never had an abortion because she was never even pregnant,” Bauer said in the video, sharing a screenshot of a negative pregnancy urine test.
Nexstar’s KTLA attempted to reach Esemonu, but was unsuccessful.
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Trevor Bauer (27) pitches in the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday, June 6, 2021, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Bauer, 33, has been out of Major League Baseball since July 2021 after several women leveled sexual assault allegations against him.
The 2020 Cy Young winner was placed on administrative leave by MLB and eventually suspended for an unprecedented 324 games, or two full seasons. An arbitrator eventually cut the suspension to 194 games, but Bauer has yet to land a job with a Major League ballclub.
He is currently pitching for the Diablos Rojos del Mexico of the Mexican League
Last year, Bauer settled dueling defamation lawsuits with another woman who claimed the pitcher sexually assaulted and beat her at his home in Pasadena.
Bauer said that the encounter was also consensual and, in another video, provided what he claimed to be evidence to back his assertion that she concocted the assault claim to extort money.
Bauer has not been arrested or charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
“At this point, I’m not sure what else I can possibly do to prove my innocence in all of this,” Bauer said in Tuesday’s video. “I did not do what I was accused of, and every institution that our society has entrusted to rule on issues like these, like courts, judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, etc., they all agree with me. … This is insane. At what point do I get to go back to work and continue earning a living?”
