Earlier this week, Trevor Bauer released a video announcing that he and a woman who accused him of sexual assault had reached a settlement to to drop their respective lawsuits against each other. The former MLB pitcher’s nearly four-minute-long video contained evidence, including text messages and a video, which he said proved the accuser had falsely accused him of crimes as a part of an elaborate extortion scheme.
But while much of the reaction to Bauer’s post has been sympathetic to the 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner, who hasn’t played in the Major Leagues since the allegations were first made public in 2021, former Miami Marlins team president David Samson has a different take on the matter. Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, Samson — who earned a law degree from Yeshiva University — took issue with multiple aspects of Bauer’s video.
“He went into a three-minute exchange of victim-blaming and victim-shaming,” Samson said of Bauer’s video. “As though explaining why he beat the crap out of her without her consent because, ‘she wanted money, and by the way, I never did that.'”
Samson then alleged that Bauer lied in the video when he said a judge found that “no sexual assault or non-consensual conduct took place.”
“He actually lied,” Samson said. “He said that ‘the court said that I never did it.’ And that’s not at all what happened. When there’s a domestic violence restraining order, the question is does the court grant it? Does the court extend it? And what the court looks to, among other things, is is there future harm? Is there imminent harm? And Trevor Bauer had said, ‘I’m never seeing this woman again.’ And the woman had overstated her concern that he wanted to see her again. So the judge said, ‘There’s no need for this restraining order, so I’m not going to keep it in place because Trevor is not going to be with this woman.’
“They didn’t talk about whether or not Trevor had beaten her up. Whether or not Trevor had choked her out or beaten her private parts when she was unconscious. That was not the issue for that hearing. Then when the case was dismissed on the claims and the counterclaims just the other day — settled — again, no finding of fact of what exactly happened. As a matter of fact, there was a thought in the opinion that something was amiss. But Trevor’s video would have you believe, ‘Hey, this woman was doing nefarious things.'”
https://twitter.com/LeBatardShow/status/1709627197915353222
As for the woman, she told Prime Time with Alex Stein that Bauer’s video only included carefully selected portions of her text messages to make her look bad. Bauer, meanwhile, publicly took to social media on Tuesday to allege that the woman’s lawyers helped her withhold evidence during discovery.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.