Trevor Bauer Goes OFF on His Accuser After Both Drop Their Lawsuits, With No Money Changing Hands

Meg Oliphant. Getty Images.

As a general rule in this business, just about the worst subjects you can address is anything involving allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault. The topics are just so emotionally charged, people read into what you're saying whatever they want to read. And if your opinion doesn't square 100% with theirs, they have a tendency to turn it into a straw man argument, accusing you of defending the indefensible. Or of just being the worst kind of monster. It's a Kobyashi Maru, the unwinnable scenario. 

But sometimes you've got to boldly go wherever the news takes you. In this instance, the resolution of a story that came up a year and a half ago:

After the suspension, Trevor Bauer and MLB went to an arbitrator who reduced his suspension to 194 games. Then he was promptly released by the Dodgers and is currently pitching in Japan. As this was going on, the woman in question was denied a restraining order, and the District Attorney's office opted not to bring criminal charges against Bauer. In the meantime, both parties sued each other. And those matters were just resolved:

ESPN - Former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer and the San Diego woman who first accused him of sexual assault, triggering the investigation that led to an unprecedented suspension from Major League Baseball, have settled their civil lawsuits outside of court, with no money exchanged between the two parties. 

"Trevor Bauer and Lindsey Hill have settled all outstanding litigation," Bauer's attorneys, Jon Fetterolf and Shawn Holley, wrote in a statement on Monday. "Both of their respective claims have been withdrawn with prejudice, effective today. Mr. Bauer did not make -- and never has made -- any payments to Ms. Hill, including to resolve their litigation." …

Bauer, 32, subsequently released a near-four-minute video on YouTube alleging that Hill's legal team approached him "multiple times" about a financial settlement that his side consistently declined. Bauer said in the video that the defamation lawsuit allowed his legal team to uncover additional cell phone material that was "deliberately and unlawfully concealed" from his lawyers, most notably a video of the woman "lying in bed next to me while I'm sleeping, smirking at the camera without a care in the world -- or any mark on her face" on the morning after the second alleged incident.

"I think it paints a pretty clear picture of what actually happened the evening of May 15th and why the video was originally concealed from us," Bauer added.

Here's the video, which is fast approaching 50 million views and 165,000 likes:

So you don't have to invest the five minutes it takes to watch it, Bauer claims he specifically refused to agree to any sort of gag order that would limit his ability to talk about the case. By way of full disclosure, it's important to point out that the video is heavily edited. And he doesn't offer up any context as to where the texts he shows came from. We're left to presume they're from Lindsey Hill and that they were given to his lawyers in the discovery phase of the lawsuits. The texts he shows seem to indicate:

--Hill describing Bauer as "Next victim. Star pitcher for the Dodgers."

--Hill asking a friend "What should I steal?" and getting the answer "Take his money."

--Another says "I'm going to his house Wednesday. I already have my hooks in," followed by what looks like a screengrab of their conversation and "You know how I roll." 

--Then he claims that after the first time they ahem "met," her texts read, "Net worth is 51 mil." and "bitch, you better secure the bag." 

--He asks how she planned to do that. And answers with texts that read, "need daddy to choke me out," and "Being an absolute WHORE to try and get in on his 51 million."

And after claiming that after the second time they met, Hill was texting former Padres pitcher Jacob Nix about her intentions and getting into the background of the court cases, Bauer drops the biggest bombshell, right around the 1:00 mark. It's video that appears to be the two of them laying in bed together. A video he says was "unlawfully concealed" from him and his legal team. One that he claims the metadata proves she took minutes before leaving his place. With her smirking at the camera and him sound asleep in a mask like Mr. Howell used to sleep in on Gilligan's Island:

Absolutely wild.

In case it's not obvious, I'm watching my step as I tiptoe through this minefield, for all the reasons we discussed earlier. Making use of all the qualifying words I can, like "claims" and "says" and "seems to" and all that. Because none of us where in those court sessions and discovery meetings. And a slickly produced video isn't evidence. Let's acknowledge that. 

But you know what else isn't evidence? Accusations. Allegations. Someone claiming to be a victim. That's why in courts of law they insist on using neutral language like "complaining witness" instead of "victim," because anyone can say anyone else did anything to them. And just as being a famous athlete worth $51 million isn't a defense, it doesn't make you guilty. 

That's the thing we tend to forget. In a typically well-intentioned effort to support actual victims of violent crimes, we can't just go totally in the other direction and pretend sometimes people get falsely accused. Trying to make it so people who've been harmed can come forward safe in the knowledge they won't be vilified for it is a noble cause. But no more so than protecting the accused's right to due process. To a presumption of innocence. To their day in court. 

To be honest, I don't much like Trevor Bauer. He's always struck me as kind of dick. But being a dick doesn't mean he deserved to have his Major League career cut short by accusations that didn't meet the minimum standard for a restraining order, got thrown out of criminal court, and which collapsed into nothing more than two dropped lawsuits and no money changing hands. 

Generally speaking, multimillionaire athletes who get to live lives of casual, commitment-free sportfucking with hot groupies are last on the list of people we have sympathy for. But no one should have to go try to eke out a living overseas just because MLB and the Dodgers were too freaked out about bad publicity to let the legal process play out. 

I don't know what the solution is. I mean, I do get where baseball is coming from.  It's not great for business to have an accused violent sexual offender taking the ball for you every fifth day. But if we just go forward with a presumption of guilt every time some famous person has a metaphorical finger pointed at them, then no one is safe from allegations, true or false. And MLB and the Dodgers just created a new public relations nightmare for themselves by making Trevor Bauer the poster child for what Bill Burr has been saying for years about society's over-correction:

My guess is Bauer's lawyers will be filing another lawsuit. And this one won't be dropped with no money being exchanged.