Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer plans to invoke his constitutional right not to incriminate himself and therefore will not answer questions about the case of a woman seeking a five-year restraining order against him, he said in court Wednesday. the athlete’s lawyer.
Shawn Holley added to the judge that the only questions Bauer will answer will be “what’s his name and how does he make a living.” The attorney emphasized that there is a pending criminal investigation by the police in Pasadena, California.
The complainant claims that Bauer strangled her unconscious and punched her during two sexual encounters. The woman’s attorneys said Bauer was the last remaining witness they planned to call to testify at the hearing.
Holley asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman to relieve Bauer of the need to take the stand, as defendants often do in criminal cases.
In civil matters, a witness will normally invoke the Fifth Amendment on certain specific questions.
Gould-Saltman declared a recess in the hearing for the remainder of the day, explaining that he would read the legal background presented by Holley and make a decision this Thursday morning. On this same day, the judge could make her decision on the restraining order for domestic violence, after hearing the final arguments of both parties.
Bauer seeks to prevent the order from being issued, and has said through his representatives that everything that happened between him and the 27-year-old woman, who lives in San Diego, was consensual. The player has attended the three days of the hearing, and was expected to take the stand.
A good part of the audience has consisted of testimonies from the woman herself. The nurse who examined her for an alleged sexual assault after the second meeting with Bauer, a doctor summoned by the baseball player’s lawyers to analyze those findings, and the complainant’s best friend also appeared.
The Major League Baseball office imposed a suspension with pay on the 30-year-old Bauer on July 2, days after a temporary restraining order was granted while evidence was reviewed, as is often the case in these cases.
On Wednesday, her third day on the witness stand, the woman acknowledged that she had expressed satisfaction to her friends when the case became public knowledge. However, she said it was a reaction to the press’ treatment of her, not the consequences against the Dodgers pitcher.
“I felt good not to see that the media called me a bitch from the beginning,” said the woman to a question from Holley, who relied on text messages shared by the whistleblower at the time. (AP)